PDF Summary:Killing Lincoln, by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard

In April 1865, the Civil War reached its end with the collapse of the Confederacy and General Lee's surrender at Appomattox. But the close of the war brought another crisis: President Abraham Lincoln's assassination at the hands of John Wilkes Booth. In Killing Lincoln, Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard chronicle the final days of the Civil War and the events surrounding Lincoln's murder.

The authors describe the Confederate army's retreat and surrender, then shift to Booth's conspiracy to assassinate key government officials. You'll learn about Booth's motivations, the mechanics of his plot, and the massive manhunt that followed Lincoln's death. The book also covers the trials and executions of Booth's co-conspirators, including the controversial hanging of Mary Surratt, the first woman executed by the U.S. government.

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The authorities captured many of Booth’s co-conspirators, including Atzerodt and Powell, who had failed in their assassination attempts on Vice President Johnson and Secretary Seward. The investigation led to the capture of numerous individuals connected to the plot, including Mary Surratt, who owned the tavern where Booth and Herold stopped to pick up weapons during their escape.

(Shortform note: The capture of Booth’s co-conspirators, including Mary Surratt, was significant because it demonstrated the government’s ability to swiftly respond to a national crisis and bring those responsible to justice. However, the legal proceedings against Surratt, in particular, have been the subject of ongoing debate and controversy. In The Assassin’s Accomplice, Kate Clifford Larson explores how Surratt’s trial and execution have become a touchstone in discussions about civil liberties and the government’s response to political violence.)

Next, they describe Booth’s conspiracy and the manhunt for him.

The Plan and Its Execution

O'Reilly and Dugard explain that Booth recruited a group to help kidnap Lincoln. This group included Sam Arnold, Michael O'Laughlen, and others skilled in arms, in good physical condition, and familiar with the secondary routes and waterways of southern Maryland.

According to Booth's southern handlers, his initial task was to abduct Lincoln as he traveled the solitary rural route to the Soldiers' Home. Booth attempted unsuccessfully two times. He then planned to abduct Lincoln from the presidential theater box in Washington. The plan was so absurd that none of his collaborators would participate. One of them withdrew entirely and caught the train home. Booth invested thousands in the scheme, partly with his own money but mostly with funds from the Confederacy, but the plan never came to fruition.

The Confederate Secret Service and the Lincoln Conspiracy

In Blood on the Moon, historian Edward Steers Jr. argues that the Lincoln conspiracy must be understood as part of a larger Confederate clandestine war effort. He explains that the Confederacy, facing defeat on the battlefield, turned to irregular warfare and sabotage to gain an advantage. This included cross-border raids, arson plots, and attempts to spread disease in Northern cities. Steers points to the Confederate Secret Service and its Canadian-based operatives as key players in these efforts. He notes that Booth's plans were part of this broader strategy, with Confederate agents like Jacob Thompson providing support and encouragement. Steers argues that understanding this context is crucial to fully grasping the motivations and resources behind Booth's actions.

Next, they describe Booth's motivation and the mechanics of the plot.

Booth's Radicalization and Motivation

O'Reilly and Dugard explain that Booth was motivated by his belief in white supremacy and the Confederate cause. He viewed Black people as inferior and believed slavery was a natural state. Booth blamed abolitionism for the Civil War and felt it needed to be crushed. His personal animosity toward Lincoln, stemming from resentment toward his father, also fueled his motivation. Booth’s dad was a skilled actor who didn’t recognize his son’s talent, and this hatred transferred to Lincoln, intensifying following the Emancipation Proclamation.

(Shortform note: In American Assassins, James W. Clarke argues that political assassins are typically individuals whose sweeping ideological convictions fuse with long-standing personal grievances and humiliations, so that the contemplated murder of a public leader comes to be experienced as a single, dramatic act capable of reversing a lifetime of failure, transforming an aggrieved and marginal self into a figure of historical consequence and turning private shame into a fantasy of public heroism. This framework helps explain how Booth’s belief in white supremacy and his resentment toward his father could have combined to make Lincoln a symbolic target. Booth’s racist ideology provided a grand historical narrative in which he could cast himself as a defender of a threatened social order, while his personal grievances—particularly his feelings of inadequacy and rejection by his father—created a psychological need for a single, spectacular act that would transform his identity from a failed actor to a figure of historical significance.)

Booth was additionally driven by a fear of violence from newly freed slaves. During his teenage years, he experienced trauma when fugitive slaves murdered a friend's dad. He believed that, should the Confederacy be defeated, there would be widespread violence and bloodshed. Additionally, Booth sought recognition and glory. He boasted and was dishonest, eager to exaggerate tales to appear courageous and daring. He was a cruel, temperamental bully, prepared to penalize anyone who disagreed with him. Beyond his affection for his mother, Booth was willing to do anything to satisfy his urges. He also wanted to give Confederate troops a reason to keep fighting, finding comfort in the 146,000 soldiers who refused to surrender. Booth intended to further motivate their fight.

The Southern Culture of Honor

In Southern Honor, Bertram Wyatt-Brown argues that the antebellum South’s culture of honor shaped white men’s identities and actions. He contends that Southern elites lived in constant fear of slave revolts and the possibility of racial hierarchy being overturned. This fear of retribution from former slaves made the maintenance of dominance a moral duty rather than a personal preference. Wyatt-Brown explains that public reputation, not private conscience, was the primary motivator for Southern men. They were expected to respond to any perceived insult or challenge with intimidation or violence, as failure to do so would result in social ruin.

Booth's loathing of Lincoln was fueled by his belief that abolitionism caused the Civil War. O'Reilly and Dugard say he believed Black people were an inferior class who should work for white people. He thought the only way to stop violence from newly freed slaves was to win the Civil War and re-establish slavery.

(Shortform note: Booth’s belief that slavery was necessary to prevent violence was part of a larger intellectual tradition in the South. In the 19th century, Southern elites combined biblical interpretations with early racial “science” to argue that Black people were inherently inferior and destined for servitude.)

The Mechanics of the Conspiracy

O'Reilly and Dugard explain that Booth and his co-conspirators planned to assassinate key government officials. They aimed to kill President Lincoln, Vice President Johnson, Secretary of State Seward, and War Secretary Edwin Stanton. Booth thought that killing these men would throw the government into chaos and allow the Confederacy to rise again. He assigned his fellow conspirators to assassinate the other government officials while he killed Lincoln. Lewis Powell was assigned to assassinate Seward, George Atzerodt to assassinate Johnson, and David Herold to assassinate Stanton.

(Shortform note: O’Reilly and Dugard weren’t the first to reconstruct the events of the assassination in this way. In Blood on the Moon, Edward Steers Jr. describes the same events in detail, drawing on trial transcripts, military dispatches, and other archival sources. Steers’s book was published in 2001, several years before O’Reilly and Dugard’s account.)

The Manhunt and Its Aftermath

O'Reilly and Dugard explain that Baker played a significant role in the manhunt for Booth. Baker was a counterterrorism agent promoted within the War Department and was granted complete authority to establish the National Detective Police, a forerunner of the Secret Service. He was known for his shifty character and undefined loyalties, and Secretary Stanton quickly tired of him. Baker returned to New York City and worked for the J. J. Chaffey Company, a Canadian firm. He got nearly $150,000 from the company, and they also paid Booth nearly $15,000 in late summer and early fall of 1864.

(Shortform note: The “National Detective Police” was a wartime internal-security bureau within the War Department. It relied on undercover operatives to uncover and disrupt Confederate espionage and subversion within Union territory. The agency’s creation reflected the Union’s recognition of the need for a centralized intelligence apparatus to counter the sophisticated spy networks operated by the Confederacy.)

The payments were issued in gold and placed in the Bank of Montreal. That same month, Booth traveled to Montreal to collect the funds and meet John Surratt and other Confederate Secret Service members to plan the Lincoln matter. The address 178 1/2 Water Street links various puzzling communications and payments related to Baker and Booth, as several documents refer to this place in connection with payments from the J. J. Chaffey Company to Baker and Booth.

(Shortform note: Steers notes that Canadian business ledgers and telegraph records from 178 1/2 Water Street have been preserved, allowing researchers to reconstruct the money trail. He explains that these records show how funds were transferred from the J. J. Chaffey Company to Baker and Booth, providing concrete evidence of the financial transactions that supported the conspiracy.)

No one has figured out why Lafayette Baker and John Wilkes Booth received payments from the J. J. Chaffey Company. There are some hints, like a message dispatched April 2, 1865—the day Lincoln watched the fall of Petersburg. The message originated at 178 1/2 Water Street and was sent to a business in Chicago. The telegram stated that J. W. Booth would be sending oysters until Saturday the 15th, implying that Booth, who never had any experience in shipping or the oyster trade, was part of a venture completely unsuited to his abilities. The implications of the message remain inconclusive.

(Shortform note: The mystery of the J. J. Chaffey payments and the “oysters” telegram is part of a long tradition of over-interpreting fragmentary clues in Lincoln-assassination literature. In his book The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies, historian William Hanchett argues that the assassination has been a magnet for conspiracy theories since the day it happened. He explains that the sheer number of people involved in the plot, the chaos of the war’s end, and the lack of clear evidence have led to a proliferation of theories, many of which rely on circumstantial evidence and speculation. Hanchett points out that the tendency to see patterns and connections where none exist is a common feature of conspiracy thinking. He argues that many of the supposed “clues” and “evidence” cited by conspiracy theorists are either misinterpreted or taken out of context.)

Baker openly acknowledged intercepting Secretary Stanton's telegraph lines, but he didn't clarify his reasoning. The authors note that Baker was likely aware that assassinating Lincoln might lead to Stanton, who was against Lincoln's 1860 bid for the presidency, eventually taking over the role. The United States has had a succession plan in place since 1792, with the vice president replacing the fallen president, as when Zachary Taylor died in office and was succeeded by Millard Fillmore.

(Shortform note: The authors’ implication that killing Lincoln could have led to Stanton becoming president is inaccurate. The succession statute in force in 1865 placed the president pro tempore of the Senate and the speaker of the House in the line of succession after the vice president. Cabinet officers like Stanton weren’t included in the line of succession until 1886. Therefore, there was no direct legal route for someone in Stanton’s position to inherit the presidency.)

If a more detailed plan for an assassination had been developed to eliminate Lincoln, Johnson, and Seward, an expert on constitutional law such as Edwin Stanton could have tried to influence the procedure for his benefit—and maybe even ascend to the presidency. This link involving Baker, Booth, and Stanton still fascinates and puzzles scholars. Baker gained immediate fame for locating Lincoln's assassin. O'Reilly and Dugard explain that he published a successful book in 1867 called History of the United States Secret Service, where he described his part in capturing Booth. Some of his statements, such as the one about delivering Booth's journal to Edwin Stanton, prompted a congressional inquiry into his involvement in the diary's disappearance. When soldiers returned to Washington carrying Booth's corpse, they gave the journal to Baker.

(Shortform note: In The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies, historian William Hanchett argues that there is no reliable evidence to support the idea that Baker, Booth, and Stanton were involved in a conspiracy. He explains that the trial records and correspondence that have survived to this day don’t support the idea that Stanton was involved in the assassination.)

Next, they describe the capture of Booth and Herold, as well as the trials and punishments of Mary Surratt and other conspirators.

The Capture of Booth and His Accomplice Herold

O'Reilly and Dugard describe how Booth and Herold were apprehended at Garrett’s farm. They were hiding inside a barn when the cavalry encircled the property. Herold surrendered, whereas Booth refused. The cavalry set the barn on fire, Booth was shot and paralyzed. He died the following morning.

(Shortform note: Some have claimed that Booth didn’t die at Garrett’s farm. In 1907, a Memphis lawyer named Finis L. Bates published a book called The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth, in which he claimed that Booth had confessed his true identity to him while living under the alias John St. Helen. Bates claims that Booth told him that he had escaped from the authorities and had been living in hiding for years.)

The Trials and Punishments

O'Reilly and Dugard explain that Surratt and her fellow conspirators were tried and punished for their parts in Lincoln's murder. Mary Surratt was a widow who owned a boarding house in Washington, D.C. Booth and his co-conspirators met there and planned the assassination. She was detained on April 17, 1865, and charged with conspiring to assassinate President Lincoln. She was tried alongside other conspirators, including Lewis Powell, George A. and David H. After a seven-week trial, they were found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. Mary Surratt was the first female executed by the U.S. government.

(Shortform note: Some historians have argued that Surratt was unfairly convicted and executed. In 1895, legal scholar David Miller DeWitt published a book titled The Judicial Murder of [Mary E. Surratt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MarySurratt)_, in which he argued that Surratt was convicted more by political passions than by evidence. He explains that the prosecution relied heavily on circumstantial evidence and the testimony of questionable witnesses. DeWitt also points out that Surratt was tried by a military commission rather than a civilian court, which he argues was a violation of her constitutional rights. He concludes that Surratt was executed not because of her guilt, but because of the government's desire to quickly punish those associated with Lincoln's assassination.)

Other conspirators received prison sentences: Dr. Samuel Mudd, Samuel Arnold, and Michael O'Laughlen were sentenced to life in prison, and Ned Spangler received a six-year sentence. O'Laughlen died in prison, while President Andrew Johnson later pardoned Spangler, Mudd, and Arnold. Mary Surratt's son, John Surratt, fled to Canada and then to Europe, where he was eventually discovered and brought back to the United States for trial. The jury was unable to reach a decision about his involvement, and he was released.

(Shortform note: The postwar legal and political climate influenced the fate of the conspirators. In the years following the Civil War, there was growing skepticism in the North about the use of military commissions to try civilians, as well as a shift in political priorities during Reconstruction. These factors contributed to a move away from the uncompromising retribution of wartime toward greater clemency for the imprisoned conspirators and greater leniency in John Surratt’s civilian trial.)

Mary Surratt's boarding house was pinpointed as the conspiracy's headquarters. She gave Booth and his co-conspirators arms and lodging. She was arrested after a boarder, Louis Weichmann, provided information to authorities about the activities of Booth and his fellow conspirators at her boarding house. During the trial, Mary Surratt's lawyer attempted to secure President Andrew Johnson's intervention for her, arguing that she was simply a solitary woman trying to get by and that she neither fired the gun nor directly participated in the murder. Her supporters hoped her life would be spared, but the request to save her never reached President Johnson because his assistant, Preston King, withheld the information. John Surratt might have been able to mitigate his mother's sentence by demonstrating that her role in the assassination was supportive rather than participatory, but he did not testify for her.

Mary Surratt: Scapegoat for the Assassination

Historian Elizabeth Steger Trindal, author of Mary Surratt: An American Tragedy, argues that Mary Surratt was a scapegoat for the assassination. She contends that the government never produced a single trustworthy piece of evidence that Mary Surratt had prior knowledge of any plan to murder President Lincoln. Instead, her conviction rested on circumstantial evidence, unreliable witnesses, and a climate of postwar hysteria. Trindal points out that the prosecution's case relied heavily on the testimony of individuals with questionable credibility, including Louis Weichmann, whose accounts were inconsistent and self-serving. She also notes that the military tribunal that tried Surratt operated under rules that favored the prosecution, including the admission of hearsay evidence and the presumption of guilt by association. Trindal argues that Surratt's Catholic faith and her status as a Southern sympathizer made her an easy target for a government eager to demonstrate swift justice. She concludes that Surratt's execution was not the result of proven guilt, but rather a tragic consequence of a nation seeking retribution in the aftermath of its greatest trauma.