No no. Go read Manhunt.

I volunteer at Ford's Theatre, both as an usher but also at the historic site, talking about the Lincoln assassination. For the past year, we've gotten a lot of comments about the Bill O'Reilly/Martin Dugard book Killing Lincoln. There was a bit of controversy because the book isn't sold in the museum bookstore (though it is sold in the gift shop in the lobby). (And when Edward Steers, who is a Major Name in Lincoln assassination society, says that your book is wrong...people should listen.) Enough people have talked about it that I finally gave in and decided to read the book for myself. That way I can tell people why it's bad and provide details!

I'd have a lot fewer problems with this book if O'Reilly and Dugard just called it historical fiction. Because that's what it is. The thing that probably bothered me the most was the way the book frequently wrote what Booth and Lincoln were thinking. One of the more egregious sections is this (pp. 29-30):

Despite John Wilkes Booth's many infidelities, Lucy Hale is the love of his life. She is the only anchor that might keep him from committing a heinous crime, effectively throwing his life away in the process. In her eyes he sees a happy future replete with marriage, children, and increased prosperity as he refocuses on his career. They can travel the world together, mingling with high society wherever they go, thanks to her father's considerable connections. All he has to do is choose that love over his insane desire to harm the president.

Lucy--who was the daughter of a New York Senator--was engaged to Booth, and quite possibly was the love of his life. But...what? And this kind of thing occurs over and over in the book. (And I don't just mean the bad writing.) Booth had a journal and wrote letters, but it's not like we knew what he thought to that depth. He also apparently was jealous of Robert Todd Lincoln because Booth regarded him as a rival for Lucy, loathed his father (though little mention of Edwin Booth is made--not that I think John loathed Edwin, but he probably was jealous), and was "fearless in bed." I can only assume that Lucy wrote letters describing John's lovemaking.

And Preston King killed himself because he didn't pass along a petition to Andrew Johnson to commute Mary Surratt's sentence.

The authors also claim Lincoln's thoughts on the theater were quite different than anything I've read. They claim that he went to the theater during the war mostly to indulge Mary, whereas everything I've read indicated that he loved going because it got his mind off the war. They also claim that he wanted to see Aladdin at the National with Tad. Maybe? Of course, they also have the Fords being super excited over Lincoln coming to the theater on April 14. They were, of course, but the big coup was getting Grant to come. People in DC were used to seeing Lincoln, but Grant was the big hero of the moment.

(This is particularly odd, given the rest of the book's tongue bath of Grant. You'd never know what a crappy President the dude was, and they totally glossed over his numerous failures in life. But he won the war, so, yay!)

The authors frequently mention how vulnerable Lincoln--and other leaders--are to assassination. I'm not entirely sure what the point of this is. Are we supposed to be grateful he made it as long as he did? Also, early chapters kept including "The man with 10 days left to live blah blah blah." We all know Lincoln is going to die. Stop hitting us over the head. Like this description of Lincoln on the morning of April 14 (p. 146):

Every aspect of Lincoln's early morning has the feel of a man putting his affairs in order: reading the Bible [established as something he does every day], jotting a few notes [responding to mail], arranging for a last carefree whirl around Washington with his loyal wife [last? they discussed plans for the future], and setting his son on a path that will ensure him a successful future [he suggested to Robert that it was time to go back to school to become a lawyer]. All of this is done unconsciously, of course, but it is notable. [No, it's not.] But today it is as if Lincoln subconsciously knows what is about to happen.

And oddly enough, for a book about the killing of Lincoln, O'Reilly and Dugard spend a LOT of time discussing the end of the Civil War. Like, actual troop movements and final engagements. I suppose it was to set the scene for the mood of the country, but the connection wasn't really there. If I want to read a book about the military aspects of the war, I'll find one.

Booth as depicted in the book doesn't decide to kill Lincoln until the week of the assassination, and as written, thinks that he'll just go up to Lincoln on the street or in a hotel and shoot. I just can't buy that. Booth had planned to use a theater to kidnap Lincoln (which was apparently part of a plot to just restore slavery; I mean, yeah, Booth wanted slavery back, but at this point, he just wanted the war to continue). Part of the reason Booth killed Lincoln was for the notoriety. I can't believe that he thought he'd just bump into Lincoln in a hotel and shoot him, much less that he spent the evening of April 13 wandering DC for just that chance.

The physical descriptions of people throughout the book was bizarre. Booth was handsome. Check. But David Herold was described as having "matinee-idol good looks," whereas Lewis Powell gets this description: "otherwise very handsome--save for his face being deformed on one side, thanks to a mule's kick." Look at that picture. Deformed on one side? What? Dude was dreamy. To this day, women at Ford's see his picture and get all giggly. Mary Surratt is said to "captivate journalists" with her good looks and Lucy Hale is all sensuous and attracting men left and right, but Mary Todd Lincoln is totally unattractive.

The authors seem to have a bit of a thing for David Herold. He's frequently described in literature as being dim, which probably wasn't the case. However, here we get this, from page 248. Herold has gone with Dr. Mudd towards town the morning of the 15th, but goes back to Mudd's farm before making it into the town itself--which is good, because there are soldiers around:

That is the sort of savvy, intuitive thinking that separates David Herold from the other members of Booth's conspiracy. Atzerodt is dim. Powell is a thug. And Booth is emotional. But the twenty-two-year-old Herold, recruited to the conspiracy for his knowledge of Washington's backstreets, is intelligent and resourceful. He was educated at Georgetown College, the finest such institution in the city. He is also an avid hunter, which gives him a full complement of the outdoor skills that Booth now requires to escape, the additional ability to improvise in dangerous situations, and an instinctive sixth sense about tracking--or, in this case--being tracked.

The details left out and included was random. Why didn't they include the famous quote after Booth watched Lincoln giving his speech the night of April 11--"That'll be the last speech he'll ever make"? Why didn't they include the fact that Booth gave his own name when crossing the bridge out of DC? Why include that the Lincoln autopsy was "inconclusive" (p. 208)? He was shot in the head. An "inconclusive" autopsy does not indicate a conspiracy. And why say that Tad died of a "mysterious heart condition"? He got tuberculosis on a trip to Europe and died of heart failure. Not mysterious. The whole "sic semper tyrannis" quote is unaddressed--he has Booth planning on saying it, but nothing about him saying it (or not) at the theater. Also, Richmond is described as "more distinctly American" than Washington D.C. because Patrick Henry gave his "Give me liberty or give me death" speech there (p. 38).

There are also factual issues in the book; details of the Seward attack are off, as are details regarding the imprisonment of the conspirators. They describe Booth drilling the hole in the door to the box at Ford's, which was discredited years ago. The description of what happened to Ford's itself and the actors working there was off. Also, the whole "Oval Office" thing.

I'm not going to say that everything about the book is bad. It's very engaging. It has the Dan Brown-style short chapters thing happening, making it super quick to read. And he includes some things I like, like the story of Boston Corbett. (Don't know this story? Go look it up! It's fantastic.) My boy Ned Spangler is also treated very sympathetically.

However, they refer to telegrams as "t-mail." Just...no.

But the most egregious part of the book is that the Lincoln assassination is portrayed as a conspiracy. Not just among John Wilkes Booth and Atzerodt, Powell, and Herold, but involving Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Or, as they put it on page 216, it was the "most spectacular assassination conspiracy in history of man." Because if Lincoln AND Johnson AND Seward died...then Stanton would be President? The book makes a big deal of the fact that Stanton wasn't attacked that night. But then, neither were any of the rest of Cabinet. Honestly, this is just nuts. The chances of it actually working were so small, and the likelihood of being exposed were pretty high. Why would Stanton do that?

(The missing Booth diary pages. Stanton had them. It's not like Booth used them while on the run to give notes to people...Oh, wait. He totally did. Some of them, at least.)

The book makes a HUGE deal of the relationship between Stanton and Lafayette Baker and how incompetent Baker was and corrupt and yet Stanton called him in to find Booth! From page 244:

Baker is in his room at New York's Astor House hotel when he hears that Lincoln has been shot. The disgraced spy, who was sent away from Washington for tapping Secretary Stanton's telegraph lines, is not surprised. His first thought, as always, is of finding a way to spin this tragedy for his own personal gain. ... If Baker were an ordinary man and not prone to weaving elaborate myths about himself...

And somehow, at the same time, Booth was part of a Confederate plot. In the book, he's definitely a Confederate agent who had a go-ahead to kidnap Lincoln. And these are illustrated together--as if somehow Booth could be working with Stanton AND Jefferson Davis to kill the President!

Look, I don't know much about Lafayette Baker or Edwin Stanton. I do know that historians whose work I respect have discredited this theory. And nothing in this books makes me give it any benefit of the doubt. About anything, really, much less that a Cabinet member wanted his President dead.

I'm just happy I took it out of the library and didn't directly pay any money for this.