Assassination of Lincoln: A History of the Great Conspiracytrial of the Conspirators by a Military Commission, and a Review of the Trial of John H. Surratt

The author brings something no other account possesses: he lived in Abraham Lincon's Springfield home for a decade, then in the house where the president died, and spent thirty-six years interviewing witnesses to the conspiracy, the flight, the capture, and the military trial. This isn't distant history written from archives alone. Harris gathered testimony from people who helped the conspirators escape and officials who prosecuted them. The book traces the assassination plot from its origins in the desperate final days of the Confederacy through John Wilkes Booth's fatal act at Ford's Theatre, the frantic pursuit across Maryland and Virginia, and the military commission that tried the conspirators. Harris also examines the later trial of John H. Surratt, which ended in a hung jury and unresolved questions. This account matters because it captures the raw grief and political fury of a nation still bleeding from civil war, attempting to process an act of violence that killed its president days after Lee's surrender. For readers of American history, Civil War deep cuts, and true crime before the genre had a name.