I will be grateful to hear from readers kind enough to assist me with my research for future book projects.
James L. Swanson
P.O. Box 76166
Washington, DC 20013
E-mail: [email protected]
Discussing Manhunt
ON THE MANHUNT BOOK TOUR, I had the pleasure of meeting several thousand readers at signings, parties, and lectures. I was asked many interesting questions, and at one event the leader of a book group suggested that I share some of these with a wider audience, to stimulate conversations at book groups that have been kind enough to choose Manhunt for discussion. Here are some of my favorite questions:
What if John Wilkes Booth had missed?
What if not only Booth, but also Lewis Powell and George Atzerodt, had accomplished their missions? Would the murders of the president, vice president, and secretary of state have plunged the Union into chaos and prolonged the Civil War?
How did the Lincoln assassination change American history?
What was Mary Surratt’s level of culpability in the assassination? Was her execution an injustice?
What of Dr. Samuel Mudd? Was he guilty, and of what?
Who is the more admirable character, the actress Laura Keene or the assassin’s sister, Asia Booth Clarke?
Is Thomas Jones, the rebel river ghost, to be admired for his code of honor or condemned for his aid to the assassin?
Is Ford’s Theatre a monument to Abraham Lincoln, or his killer?
In what ways, if any, is John Wilkes Booth a sympathetic character?
Have we, nearly 150 years after the great crime, forgiven John Wilkes Booth?
Who is the hero of Manhunt? Is there more than one?
Have You Read?
More by James L. Swanson
LINCOLN’s ASSASSINS: THEIR TRIAL AND EXECUTION
It was the crime of the nineteenth century, and it led to the most notorious trial in American history. But the story of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination didn’t end with his state funeral and the death of his killer, John Wilkes Booth. In the spring and summer of 1865, a military commission tried eight people as conspirators in Booth’s plot to murder Lincoln and other high officials. In Lincoln’s Assassins, James L. Swanson and Daniel R. Weinberg resurrect these events, presenting an unprecedented visual record—with nearly three hundred photographs—that brings to light this tragic event and the perpetrators behind it.
“[A] remarkable book… … Through an exquisite combination of vivid writing, stunning photographs, and contemporary pamphlets, letters, and documents, Swanson and Weinberg carry the reader across the boundaries of time and space, bringing the spring and summer of 1865 into brilliant focus.”
—Doris Kearns Goodwin
“An authoritative and visually compelling study of the trial and execution of the conspirators.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“[A] fascinating book… … Most notably, Lincoln’s Assassins reproduces Alexander Gardner’s striking photographs of the incarcerated defendants, which convey a sense of almost surreal immediacy”
—New York Times Book Review
Have You Heard?
MANHUNT CD
Don’t miss the next book by your favorite author. Sign up now for AuthorTracker by visiting www.AuthorTracker.com.
On CD, available from HarperAudio, James L. Swanson’s Manhunt is performed by Richard Thomas, and includes an interview with the author.
“This taut, historical account of the tense search for Lincoln’s killer, actor John Wilkes Booth, is thrillingly narrated by another actor—Richard Thomas.”
—People
About the Author
JAMES L. SWANSON has written for a variety of publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and American Heritage. He is the coauthor of Lincoln’s Assassins: Their Trial and Execution, and he is a member of the advisory committee of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.
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A Note to the Reader
This story is true. All the characters are real and were alive during the great manhunt of April 1865. Their words are authentic. Indeed, all text appearing within quotation marks comes from original sources: letters, manuscripts, affidavits, trial transcripts, newspapers, government reports, pamphlets, books, memoirs, and other documents. What happened in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 1865, and in the swamps and rivers, and the forests and fields, of Maryland and Virginia during the next twelve days, is far too incredible to have ever been made up.
—JAMES L. SWANSON
“I CHALLENGE ANYONE TO BEGIN THE CHASE AND NOT BECOME COMPLETELY ENGROSSED.”
—John Hope Franklin
“Brilliantly re-creat[es] the twelve anxious days when a grieving nation awaited the capture of the first man to assassinate an American president. This story is as gripping as any tightly scripted crime drama yet Swanson doesn’t play fast and loose with historical facts. A noted Lincoln scholar, he constructs his narrative from letters, manuscripts, trial transcripts, and other original sources.”
—Boston Globe
“This riveting hour-by-hour account of Lincoln’s assassination, Booth’s escape, and the pursuit that finally ran down and killed him is a truly remarkable narrative. Even those familiar with the story will find fascinating new details here.”
—James M. McPherson
“Manhunt infuses the historical events with a sense of adventure. It takes the reader down dusty roads and into teeming swamps in the company of soldiers and scoundrels alike. Swanson illuminates the characters of his story with a wealth of personal detail usually found in fiction. He binds them to his narrative, which gallops along at the pace of a pageturning thriller.”
—CNN.com
“An amazing and entertaining book.”
—Liz Smith
“An engrossing blend of history and thriller that pulls off the heady feat of creating edge-of-your-seat narrative even as its conclusion is inevitable. And the ride? Like the TV show 24, James L. Swanson’s tale of the search for President Abraham Lincoln’s killer rivets because of its pacing…. This tale is anything but common. Grade: A.”
—Christian Science Monitor
“Swanson reminds us that history is ultimately governed not by impersonal economic and social forces but by all the emotions that make up individual human beings.”
—David A. Price, Wall Street Journal
“Riveting…. Swanson makes the characters in this great American tragedy actually seem human. Even Booth comes across as viscerally real. Grade: A.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“It was the most horrific assassination that the nation had ever witnessed. With verve and no little drama, James L. Swanson re-creates John Wilkes Booth’s murder of Abraham Lincoln and takes the reader into the mind-numbing twists and turns of the twelve-day manhunt that ensued. What a rollicking ride!”
—Jay Winik, author of April 1865: The Month That Saved America
“Vividly readable … managed with CSI immediacy.”
—Washington Post
“Gripping…. With his cinematically vivid writing and novelistic flair, Swanson makes the story suspenseful despite the fact that we all know the ending.”
—American Heritage
“Swanson deftly peels back the hitherto mostly hidden layers of this complex moment in our nation’s history with panache, verve, and a compelling command of narrative and suspense, meticulously detailing the plot and the aftermath…. Swanson paints the scene at Ford’s Theatre brilliantly and vividly…. Manhunt is full of the small, stranger-than-fiction details that give Swanson’s narrative the ring of truth.”
—American Spectator
“James L. Swanson brings vividly to life one of the greatest stories in American history: the thrilling manhunt for John Wilkes Booth. His beautifully crafted narrative commands the reader’s
interest from start to finish—and, most important, he gets it right, down to the smallest detail.”
—Edward Steers Jr., author of Blood on the Moon:
The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
“A rousing good read…. Booth’s flawed, flamboyant character pushes the tale along…. Suspenseful.”
—USA Today
“So suspenseful that it’s hard to put down…. Swanson takes the reader along on the chase with a riveting narrative, much of it told in authentic quotes from the many principals involved…. There are fascinating twists and revelations.”
—Sacramento Bee
“An incredible account…. Though this book reads like a page-turning suspense novel, every word of it is true. Swanson blows the dust off of more than 140 years of history to bring both the murder and its fragile place in our national history into sharp focus…. Simply put, exceptional.”
—King Features Syndicate
“The lucky reader will require mere hours to race along the taut narrative of Manhunt, an accomplished new thriller that reconstructs the massive search for the murderer of Abraham Lincoln. Following Booth’s trail through these 448 pages is akin to galloping on horseback through the dark Maryland countryside…. Poetic…. Riveting…. A ripping story and a cautionary tale.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“If the assassination of President Lincoln happened in today’s world, the subsequent search for his killer would have been reported with breathless detail, complete with its own logo and theme music on twenty-four-hour cable news, not to mention blogs. Fortunately, we can rely, instead, on James L. Swanson’s gripping, fact-filled thriller, Manhunt. Scrupulously researched, he follows the trail from D.C. into the Maryland swamps, down to the Virginia woods, and on to the capture of John Wilkes Booth.”
—New York Post
“In reading Swanson’s detailed account, it will occur to readers that the events of April 14, 1865, shook the fragile, war-weary nation as much as the September 11, 2001, attacks stunned the United States. Both attacks were only partly successful but were terrible enough. Grade: A.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“Detail-rich…. A vivid and compelling portrait of the assassin.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“A vividly rendered account…. Manhunt makes for a gripping read, all the more so because the events really happened. Even the most knowledgeable reader will feel the suspense of it.”
—Washington Times
“Swanson recapitulates the story of Booth’s pursuit at a pounding clip that counts down, hour by hour, hideout by hideout, one of the most frantic manhunts in American history…. Mining a rich lode of letters, documents, testimonies, and other sources, some never published, Swanson creates a vivid portrait of Booth…. Captivating…. Swanson deserves to take a bow.”
—New York Daily News
“Vividly rendered and will have readers on edge.”
—Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
“A meticulously detailed account…. Swanson’s narrative is filled with the telling details wrought of good research. Those details re-create a time in our history that echoes poignantly for anyone who lived through the assassinations more than one hundred years later of John F. Kennedy, his brother Bobby, and Martin Luther King Jr.”
—Miami Herald
“This gripping account of the search for Lincoln’s assassin is truly stronger than fiction…. I could not put it down.”
—John Hope Franklin
“[Manhunt] is bound to be a cover-to-cover reading hit with history lovers…. Artfully arranging Booth’s flight with the frantic federal dragnet that sought him, Swanson so tensely dramatizes the chase, capture, and killing of Booth that serious shelf life awaits his account of the assassination and aftermath.”
—Booklist
“Swanson’s precise, minute-by-minute account is surprisingly suspenseful…. An enthralling story.”
—Charlotte Observer
“Gripping…. Part historical journal and part chilling suspense mystery, it’s a richly detailed account that you’ll feel on the back of your neck.”
—Contra Costa Times
“The story captivates much as the search captivated the nation in April 1865. Swanson’s minute-by-minute chronicle offers a fly-on-the-wall perspective as it retraces the assassins’ steps from crime to capture…. Remarkable.”
—Tampa Tribune
“Compelling…. A distinguished and worthy addition to the legend Americans can’t seem to read enough about.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Riveting…. Swanson’s book is must reading for any Civil War buff and a good choice for anyone who likes good narrative nonfiction.”
—Nancy Pearl, author of Book Lust
“It’s a cliché, but Swanson’s book really is hard to put down. He provides colorful detail of the twelve days it took to hunt John Wilkes Booth and lets the reader see things from both sides—hunters and hunted.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“A tightly written narrative of Booth’s crime and the twelve-day effort to track him down.”
—The Independent (London)
“Manhunt will be read a century from now.”
—Ronald K. L. Collins, author of The Trials of Lenny Bruce
“Manhunt is the historical equivalent of a chase movie. And a fast-paced one it is…. A fascinating read.”
—Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
“When Booth shot the president in Ford’s Theatre, his journey was just beginning. In his superb book, Lincoln historian James L. Swanson takes readers along for the ride…. Thrilling. It takes work to keep a book suspenseful when the outcome has been known for more than a century, but Manhunt keeps pages turning and delivers a generous helping of history without bogging down, just as good nonfiction should do.”
—Charleston Post and Courier
“Recounts the tale with the detail of a true-crime book and the gripping tension of a crime novel.”
—The Winnipeg Sun (Canada)
“A true-adventure tale of the first rank…. Vividly wrought.”
—BookPage
“A thrilling murder mystery…. Manhunt is an exciting, unfailingly gripping account…. Impossible to leave before the last page…. Swanson’s methods and resulting story may remind the reader of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, the classic of narrative history that reads like the best fiction.”
—Deseret Morning News
“Swanson presents the full story, in thrilling vignettes worthy of the drama of the actual events…. Swanson’s well-documented and vivid account allows its readers to retain Abraham Lincoln as the object of our admiration, and John Wilkes Booth as an object of intense curiosity.”
—National Review
“A riveting, you-are-there narrative…. Swanson humanizes actor Booth and his quest for one last dramatic triumph.”
—Legal Times
“With great power, passion, and at a thrilling, breakneck pace, Swanson conjures up an exhausted yet jubilant nation ruptured by grief, stunned by tragedy, and hell-bent on revenge…. Vivid…. With a deft, probing style and no small amount of swagger, Swanson … has crafted pure narrative pleasure, sure to satisfy the casual reader and Civil War afficionado alike.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Reads like a full-throttle thriller.”
—Birmingham Post
“A meticulously researched and thrilling account of the twelve-day chase.”
—Melbourne Herald Sun (Australia)
“A pure page-turner.”
—Arizona Republic
“A fast-paced, well-researched, and tightly written account [of] the greatest manhunt in American history.”
—Baltimore Sun
Copyright
All interior art courtesy of private collection except: pp. 56, 69, and 377 courtesy of collections of the Seward House, Auburn, New York; pp. 144 and 386 courtesy of th
e Lincoln Museum, Fort Wayne, Indiana; p. 361 (bottom) courtesy of National Archives.
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2006 by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
MANHUNT. Copyright © 2006 by James L. Swanson.
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Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer Page 49