6/26/2023 0 Comments Manhunt by james l swanson"Manhunt" is a richly researched and vividly written account of the crime and its immediate aftermath. Alas, he was the only victim who met the fate Booth and his cohorts intended. Lincoln was not the only target that night. Indeed, the Lincoln assassination is the only presidential murder proven in court to be the result of a conspiracy.īooth's plan - desperate to be sure, and unfathomably evil, but by no means insane - was to decapitate the entire U.S. Swanson makes it abundantly clear in the opening pages that Booth - not only not a "failed actor," but a celebrity of the first magnitude and member of America's most prominent theatrical family (imagine if a Barrymore or a Fonda had killed a president, and you get an idea for how astonishing Booth's participation was) - was anything but alone. Swanson would be worth reading for the way it smashes the popular idea that Booth was the consummate "lone nut." If it did nothing else, "Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer" by James L. Virtually every element of that perception is simply false. The common perception is that John Wilkes Booth, a failed actor, suffered a mental breakdown over the imminent Union victory in the Civil War and in a fit of madness struck out at Lincoln, the recently re-elected U.S. Yet a great deal of what most Americans "know" is wrong. (CNN) - The assassination of Abraham Lincoln is one of those historic events about which Americans believe they know a great deal.
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