Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Lincoln Assassination
The first medical report on Lincoln's assassination has been uncovered.
It was the discovery of a lifetime. Helena Iles Papaioannou, a researcher with the Papers of Abraham Lincoln project, was meticulously combing through 1865 correspondence of the U.S.
IN THE WORLD OF ALTERNATE HISTORY, IT ALL CAME OUT DIFFERENTLY. AND, IN AN ERA WHEN REAL HISTORY IS TAKING SOME VERY STRANGE TURNS, THE GENRE IS FLOURISHING AS NEVER BEFORE.
Everyone knows that the bullet that John Wilkes Booth fired into Abraham Lincoln’s brain inflicted a terrible, mortal wound. But when a prominent neurosurgeon began to investigate the assassination, he discovered persuasive evidence that Lincoln’s doctors must share the blame with Booth’s derringer. Without their treatment, the president might very well have lived.
Henry Rathbone shared Lincoln’s box at Ford’s Theatre; it destroyed his life as surely as it had the president’s.
It was a legend of myth and fear, this bloodied gown visited by ghosts. It had formed the subject of a short book.
The author joins the thousands who feel compelled to trace the flight of Lincoln’s assassin.
The first non-children’s book I ever read was Philip Van Doren Stern’s novel The Man Who Killed Lincoln. How it fell into my hands, I cannot say.
When William Withers, Jr., stepped up to the conductor’s podium at Ford’s Theatre that April evening, he thought that the greatest triumph of his career was just a few minutes away.
April 14, 1865 was an important day for William Withers, Jr. He was the orchestra leader at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., and, that evening, he was going to perform his song “Honor to Our Soldiers” for Abraham Lincoln.
MATTERS OF FACT
“ASSASSINATION IS NOT an American practice or habit,” wrote Secretary of State William H. Seward on July 15, 1864, “and one so vicious and so desperate cannot be engrafted into our political system.
Did the mysterious Portuguese sea captain help plot Lincoln’s assassination, or was he an informer?
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