Lincoln Assassination Research Articles

Lincoln’s Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky (review)

Reviewed by: Lincoln’s Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky Burrus M. Carnahan (bio) Lincoln’s Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky. By Elizabeth D. Leonard. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011. Pp. xii, 415. $40.00 cloth) Joseph Holt has had a poor reputation in American popular culture. Widely accused of suppressing civil liberties during the Civil War (most recently in Robert Redford’s movie, The Conspirator), he has also been attacked for cynically supporting punitive Reconstruction policies in the defeated South. In her biography of Holt, Elizabeth Leonard sets out to present a more balanced view of the man, his [End Page 191] character, and his accomplishments. In this effort she is successful. Born in 1807 to a moderately well-off family in northern Kentucky, Joseph Holt’s relatives early noticed his intellectual gifts, and they made it clear that he was expected to excel in life. A scholarly young man, he dutifully tried to meet his family’s expectations, and Leonard notes that devotion to duty, regardless of personal cost, would be a matter of honor for Holt his entire life. As an adult, he became a highly respected Kentucky lawyer and an energetic supporter of the Democratic Party. President James Buchanan duly rewarded Holt’s political loyalty by appointing him commissioner of patents, then postmaster general, and, in the final weeks of his administration, secretary of war. A dedicated Unionist, Holt helped convince Buchanan not to surrender Fort Sumter and other Federal positions during the secession crisis of 1860–61. His last official act as secretary of war was to hand the newly inaugurated Abraham Lincoln a message from the commander of Fort Sumter that the garrison could hold out only a few more weeks unless resupplied. Despite Holt’s political record as a Democrat, in September 1862 President Lincoln appointed him the judge advocate general of the United States Army, the chief legal officer of that service. In this position, he and his subordinate judge advocates prosecuted and reviewed courts-martial of officers and soldiers and prepared official opinions on issues of military law. More controversially, Holt’s office was also in charge of military-commission trials of civilians for disloyalty and war crimes, culminating in his prosecution of John Wilkes Booth’s accomplices. While serving as judge advocate general, Holt’s political and racial beliefs changed radically. Although a former slaveholder, who in the 1860 election had supported John Breckenridge, the most proslavery candidate for president, Holt eventually saw slavery as the root cause of the rebellion and vehemently turned against it. In one typical wartime opinion, he referred to the prewar Arkansas slave code as “repugnant to reason” and “revolting to humanity” (pp. 178–79). Beyond this, through his supervision of military-commission trials [End Page 192] in the occupied South, Holt also attempted to enforce equal rights for freed slaves. In reviewing Holt’s prosecution of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, the author criticizes several serious errors in judgment on his part, especially his naive acceptance of evidence from unreliable witnesses. However, she also convincingly argues that his overall intent was to administer justice fairly, if rigorously, to Booth’s accomplices. Leonard puts to rest one of the most serious accusations against Holt’s handling of the assassination trial. Five of the nine officers on the military commission signed a clemency petition asking President Andrew Johnson to commute Mary Surratt’s death sentence to life imprisonment. Much later, after Johnson realized that Holt opposed his white-supremacist Reconstruction policies, President Johnson claimed that Holt had concealed the clemency petition from him, an accusation Holt vehemently denied. Leonard has found evidence that Johnson had in fact discussed the clemency petition with his cabinet before approving the death sentences. This well-written, scholarly, and well-documented book deserves a wider audience than its hardback price may command. It is highly recommended for both academic and general readers interested in the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Lincoln assassination, and legal history. Burrus M. Carnahan Burrus M. Carnahan teaches law at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Act of Justice: Lincoln’s Emancipation...

The Lincoln Assassination: Crime and Punishment, Myth and Memory

The Lincoln Assassination: Crime and Punishment, Myth and Memory

A Medal for Mrs. Lincoln

A Medal for Mrs. Lincoln Jason Emerson (bio) On December 1, 1866, a group of nineteen august Frenchmen—politicians, academics, men of letters, and newspaper editors—entered the U.S. legation in Paris bearing a letter and a small box for Mary Lincoln, widow of the late President Abraham Lincoln. The men were some of the most eminent republican reformers in Imperial France, and they called themselves the Committee of the French Democracy. They were there to deliver a gift on behalf of forty thousand French citizens to honor the memory of Abraham Lincoln. The men gave their offering to U.S. Minister to France John Bigelow, after which committee member Eugène Pelletan said, "Tell Mrs. Lincoln the heart of France is in that little box."1 This gift for Mary Lincoln, a gold medal bearing a likeness of Abraham Lincoln on one side and a dedicatory inscription on the other, was the only tangible public tribute of sympathy Mary Lincoln ever received as a result of her widowhood. The story of this medal—its creation, its transmittal, its subsequent history, and its effect on Mary Lincoln—has never been fully examined by scholars, [End Page 187] and yet it is an interesting tale filled with pain and sympathy, suspicion and betrayal, frustration and triumph, and, ultimately, the victory of democracy over tyranny. A Foreign Tribute Mary Lincoln always had admired the French culture. She learned the language as a child and spoke and read it fluently, studied French history, and, as a lover of fashion, was enamored of all the latest French clothing styles. As first lady, Mary had a French chef in the White House and used her language skills to speak with foreign dignitaries in their native language. She also shared her love of French culture with Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner, himself a Francophile, and the two friends often would communicate in French. After the conclusion of her husband's second term as president, Mary intended to visit France as part of the family's planned world tour; and during her widowhood, Mary actually lived in France two separate times totaling about five years of residence. It seems, however, that she had no idea the esteem in which the French people held her husband, or her.2 The entire civilized world was shocked by President Lincoln's assassination in April 1865. Mary Lincoln later stated that she received "innumerable letters and resolutions from distinguished persons in all portions of the habitable globe" offering their sympathies.3 [End Page 188] "Their eyes, were only just beginning to comprehend the nature and nobility, of the great, good man, who had accomplished, his work, and before his Judge, it was pronounced complete," she bitterly and proudly wrote.4 Two of the first condolence letters Mary received were from the Count of Paris and the Empress of France.5 Empress Eugenie, wife of the Emperor Napoleon III, wrote, Madame: The Emperor sends to Washington his official expressions of the indignation and sadness which have gripped the nation of France, for the fatal blow that struck President Lincoln. However, aside from this national misfortune, your personal tragedy arouses profound feelings in my heart. I would like, Madame, to offer my own condolences, as well as the assurance of my prayers that Heaven will grant you the strength to bear this cruel ordeal. Please believe, [End Page 189] Madame, in my deep sympathy and my most sincere sentiments. Eugénie.6 In Paris, Minister Bigelow watched as people thronged the streets, as students held public meetings and marched in a body to the U.S. legation to express their sympathy, and as imperial police arrested many of the democratic demonstrators. The minister was soon deluged with letters of condolence, which he forwarded to Secretary of State William Seward, and which included numerous letters addressed to Mrs. Lincoln. Bigelow reported to the secretary that the number of letters was evidence not only of how the news of Lincoln's death shocked France but also of the deep respect and affection the French people held for him: "It is difficult to exaggerate the enthusiasm which his name inspires among the masses of Europe at...

The Lincoln Assassination: The Evidence. Ed. by William C. Edwards and Edward Steers Jr. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009. xxxii, 1454 pp. $125.00, ISBN 978-0-25203368-1.)

In his review of literature on Abraham Lincoln in the Journal of American History (Sept. 2009, pp. 417–40), Matthew Pinsker observes that biographies on Lincoln generally end with the president's death, but many readers also want discussion of his murder and its aftermath. Amateurs have done most of the writing on this, and the scholarship has generally been spurious. Exceptions include Michael W. Kauffman's American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies (2004), which rejects a linkage between the conspiracy and the Confederate government. The Lincoln Assassination contains testimony gathered under the authority of the War Department after Lincoln was shot on April 14, 1865—evidence that was closed to researchers until the mid-1930s. Earlier research was based on trial testimony. In 1943 records from the Office of the Judge Advocate General were turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration (nara) and organized into Record Group 153. In 1965 the testimony files and the trial proceedings were photocopied onto microfilm, facilitating research into the assassination and its aftermath. Reels 1 through 7 contain the testimony and 8 through 15 the proceedings of the trial, closing arguments, and exhibits. They constitute Microcopy 599 (M599), which includes most of the material collected by the War Department, as items were borrowed and never returned. The editors assert that most of the documents were in the possession of the War Department until they were transferred to the National Archives.

Booth (review)

Reviewed by: Booth Elizabeth Bush Colbert, C. C. Booth; illus. by Tanitoc; color by Hilary Sycamore. First Second/Roaring Brook, 2010 168p. Paper ed. ISBN 978-1-59643-125-6 $19.99 R Gr. 10-12 Although Colbert is certainly not the first to give the Lincoln assassination a graphicnovel treatment, his spin is substantially different than that of Rick Geary's The Murder of Abraham Lincoln. Whereas Geary's account traces the team of conspirators [End Page 329] in detail, rendering their activities in finely penned black and white, Colbert and illustrator Tanitoc offer a full-color presentation that focuses narrowly on John Wilkes Booth, and particularly on two women with whom he was romantically connected at the time of the assassination. Colbert's tale is essentially fact based, but in a closing note he labels his title a work of historical fiction, citing historical studies he consulted but stopping short of crediting specific sources. This is spicy business indeed, with Booth wooing and seducing Lucy Hale, the daughter of an abolitionist senator, even as he carried on a relationship with a reputed prostitute who aided him in his efforts to save a dying Rebel cause (the trysts are portrayed with a visual frankness that suggests an audience past middle school). Deep golds, browns, wine reds, and violets illuminate the thickly lined panels, yet they still suggest an atmosphere of tenebrous meeting places and dangerous cabals. Fascination with Lincoln's demise shows no sign of abating, and there's always room for another well-crafted reimagining of the event. Copyright © 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

"One Important Witness": Remembering Lydia Brown in Thomas Dixon's <i>The Clansman</i>

It may seem surprising to begin an essay on Thomas Dixon's 1905 bestseller The Clansman with epigraphs by three female African American authors, contemporaneous with his novel: Anna Julia Cooper, Mrs. N. F. Mosseli, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Surely, many current scholars read plot of The Clansman as simple and racist4 so much so that activist work and political writings of African American women should have no context within Dixon's self-proclaimed accounts of historical enactment of Reconstruction and of the true story of 'Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy/5 Seemingly inspired by racial paranoia that tormented early twentiethcentury America, text prides itself upon narratives of miscegenation and lynching that inspire textual climax: alleged rape of Marion Lenoir by former slave, Gus, and attempted rape of Elsie Stoneman by mulatto activist, Silas Lynch. The story finds its redemption when these miscegenous attempts are thwarted by Ku Klux Klan. As a consequence, story ends with triumphant lynching of Gus and ultimately preservation of southern womanhood. Nonetheless, I begin with these epigraphs because Dixon, as he preserve[s] in this romance both letter and spirit of this remarkable period, seems to engage textually with each.6 Dixon's version of chaos of blind passion that followed Lincoln's assassination is mobilized

American public philosophy and the mystery of Lincolnism

Although he is revered as one of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln seems to lack the legacy of others like Jefferson or Jackson who brought about new conceptions of American political life. In this study of Lincoln's political thought, Eric Sands blends political science, history, and political theory to offer a fresh perspective on Lincoln, his thought, and the politics of Reconstruction. In this new consideration of Lincoln's 'public philosophy' - the nation's understanding of itself - Sands seeks to determine why the spirit that successfully led the Union through the Civil War was unable to sustain itself during Reconstruction. He defines Lincolnism as a rededication to the principle of natural rights, a narrative of Divine Providence, a sentiment of brotherhood, and an augmentation of founding principles. He then explains how Lincoln's assassination, Johnson's succession, and developments in philosophy and science worked to undermine this philosophy after the war.Sands investigates why the Republican Party was unable to sustain Lincoln's ideas and why neither Republicans nor Democrats were able to formulate a compelling substitute public philosophy for Lincolnism. He describes how Radical Republicans and Purist Democrats battled for control over America's public philosophy, then how Moderate Republicans and Legitimist Democrats abandoned battles over first principles completely. By the end of Reconstruction, public philosophy politics were rejected altogether, ultimately frustrating efforts to move the nation toward the realization of full equality under the law. By reflecting on public policy formation and change, Sands evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of public philosophy politics and shows that the most inspiring and noble kind of politics, even if oriented toward moral principles, can also be dangerous and divisive.His work lends new insight into the role of ideas in politics and offers readers a new understanding of the consequences of Lincoln's actions and death of Reconstruction policies - and of why no concept of a 'Lincolnian democracy' survived during the Reconstruction Era.

Fiend, Coward, Monster, or King: Southern Press Views of Abraham Lincoln

This article examines Southern editors 'views of Abraham Lin-coln from 1860–1865. The press s role in shaping, defining, and re-flecting the public s views of Lincoln was crucial for the region 's readers, many of whom did not even know the Illinois lawyer in 1860. Southern press views of Lincoln are examined during five key periods: the presidents election and inaugural address; the open-ing of the war; his issuance ofthe Emancipation Proclamation; the election of 1864; and Lincoln's assassination. The research finds a diversity of Southern press views for much of 1860. Once war was declared, however, editorial criticism did not subside until the presi-dent's death. Even then, some newspaper editors voiced happiness at the assassination.

Abraham Lincoln and Press Suppression Reconsidered

During the Civil War the federal government was responsible for the greatest amount of newspaper suppression in the nation's history. More than 300 newspapers were shut down, most of them Democratic papers that were sympathetic to the Confederacy. Some historians have criticized President Abraham Lincoln for allowing such widespread constraints on the press. This article reconsiders the nature of Lincoln's view of press freedom. Based on a letter the president sent to a Union general, it concludes that Lincoln changed his thinking about midway through the war and began to believe that suppression of the press was not the appropriate policy. This article examines Southern editors' views of Abraham Lincoln from 1860–1865. The press's role in shaping, defining, and reflecting the public's views of Lincoln was crucial for the region's readers, many of whom did not even know the Illinois lawyer in 1860. Southern press views of Lincoln are examined during five key periods: the president's election and inaugural address; the opening of the war; his issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation; the election of 1864; and Lincoln's assassination. The research finds a diversity of Southern press views for much of 1860. Once war was declared, however, editorial criticism did not subside until the president's death. Even then, some newspaper editors voiced happiness at the assassination.

The Lincoln assassination: the evidence

The Lincoln assassination: the evidence

The Lincoln Assassination: The Evidence by William C. Edwards and Edward Steers, Jr., Editors

The Lincoln Assassination: The Evidence by William C. Edwards and Edward Steers, Jr., Editors

Lincoln’s Image in the American Schoolbook

Abraham Lincoln's image in American school books has reflected the shifting political and social landscape of American society. Following Lincoln's assassination in 1865, textbooks for the next half century portrayed him as a martyr for a mostly evangelical Protestant nation and as a role model for African Americans. The centennial of Lincoln's birth in 1909 and the massive immigration during the first two decades of the twentieth century broadened the image of Lincoln in textbooks as a common man and an inspiration for American diversity.

Dickinson's Civil War Poetics: From the Enrollment Act to the Lincoln Assassination

This article focuses on the significance of the Civil War to Dickinson as a poet. The war not only reflected Dickinson's inner turmoils, it threatened to trivialize them. What did her poems of stoic suffering and private torment matter in a nation at war with itself? How could she aspire to glory on the page when heroes were forming daily on the battlefield? In her struggle to justify her poetics and her bid for poetic fame, Dickinson took various approaches, ranging from ardent identification to aggressive emulation, and from protestations of modesty to outright confessions of envy. The challenge for Dickinson is most evident in the poems she wrote following Lincoln's assassination. How could the poet make her own name while elegizing the martyred president? In these poems, Dickinson found her answer in her role as an elegist whose "deathless syllable" would help make Lincoln's memory immortal.

Douglass and Lincoln: How a Revolutionary Black Leader and a Reluctant Liberator Struggled to End Slavery and Save the Union. By Paul Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick. (New York: Walker, 2008. x, 306 pp. $26.95, ISBN 978-0-8027-1523-4.)

In Douglass and Lincoln, Paul Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick attempt to tell the story of emancipation during the American Civil War through the eyes of two of its most compelling figures. The interaction between the two is largely imagined, as Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln only met face to face three times. In essence, this is a parallel study of two prominent figures that stand in for the wider debate over emancipation between abolitionist and political communities during the Civil War. The book does little to change the prevailing view of the two men; nor is it the sole study of Lincoln and Douglass's relationship over slavery to come out in recent years. Despite its lack of originality, Douglass and Lincoln is a compelling read that can be strongly recommended for popular audiences of history. The narrative structure of Douglass and Lincoln is straightforward. Kendrick and Kendrick introduce the reader to Douglass and Lincoln briefly and then take a more extensive, year-by-year approach from 1861 to 1865. In tracing the dissimilar roads that we might expect an African American radical abolitionist editor born in the slave South and a white Republican politician from Illinois to have traveled in reaching their respective views on slavery and emancipation by the Civil War, the authors seem keen to stress the similarities between the two, rather than their quite obvious differences. For example, they argue that Douglass's much delivered speech on the “Self-Made Man” “applied extraordinarily well to Abraham Lincoln,” and they reinforce that point several times throughout the narrative (p. 37). Each meeting between the two men is described in vivid and lively prose, relying heavily on Douglass's recollections to reconstruct settings and dialogues in great detail. The link between the two sometimes takes spiritual overtones, such as the idea that “Lincoln and Douglass grasped that powers beyond human comprehension were somehow guiding this war's end” (p. 182). Whether divinely ordained or not, Lincoln and Douglass became kindred spirits as the war evolved from a narrowly defined fight in the summer of 1861 into a revolutionary conflict that tested the merits of emancipation, African American military service, and the very notion of “equality” in nineteenth-century America. By 1865, the finality of slavery's end and Lincoln's assassination provide the closing for the narrative, although Kendrick and Kendrick also offer insights on Douglass's family beyond the end of the Civil War.

The Assassin's Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Lincoln

September/October 2008 Historically Speaking The Assassin's Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Lincoln* Kate Larson At 1:22 p.m. onJuly 7, 1865, forty-three-yearold Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt was hanged for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to murder President Abraham Lincoln. She would be the first woman ever executed by the United States government. By the summer of 1865 practically every American knew who Mary Surratt was. To them she was either a hard-hearted, manipulative co-conspirator who aided in the plan to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln, or an innocent woman trapped in Booth's murderous web and subjected to a vengeful and bloodthirsty military tribunal. Hanged with three male co-conspirators beside her, Mary's deadly punishment sent Shockwaves around the nation. Today, nearly 150 years later, few Americans know her story and still fewer recognize her name. Mother, widow, businesswoman, and a deeply pious Catholic, Mary Surratt seemed an unlikely assassin's accomplice . Until now, the reasons behind her choice to participate in such a deadly scheme have gone relatively unexplored. Lookingback into Mary's past, however, one might find the seeds of rebelliousness and disloyalty nurtured in a fertile rebel community. From her birth and upbringing in a modest slaveholding family in a small Maryland town, to her conversion to Catholicism (made much of during and after her trial), and her early marriage to an alcoholic ten years her senior, Mary's life story seems unremarkable in its detail. But clues to her fateful decision to befriend and support Lincoln's murderer may be found in the deep disruptions brought on by the Civil War and her husband's sudden death in 1862. Left with his massive debts to pay off, Mary may have discovered a strategy for survival: providing a safe haven for Confederate couriers, spies, and ultimately, assassins. During the unseasonably hot weeks of May and June 1865, dramatic newspaper reports of Mary's trial fed a growing public appetite for revenge and retribution for Lincoln's assassination. During the four-week trial, which included the simultaneous prosecution of seven other Booth accomplices, daily news reports from the courtroom exposed the public to the depth of the conspiracy to kill Lincoln and Mary's central role in the plot. By the middle of June, when the trial was winding down, most Amer- * From the book TheAssassin'sAccomplice by Kate Larson. Reprinted by arrangement with Basic Books (www.basicbooks.com), a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2008. icans believed Mary was guilty, convinced that the cold, manipulative female co-conspirator had aided John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators. The northern press had little sympathy for Mary Surratt during the highly publicized trial. At first, she was portrayed as a willing accomplice in the conspiracy . Some papers described Surratt in almost caricature fashion. An "Amazon" (she was about five feet four inches tall and of medium build), they wrote, with black eyes and a small mouth—both attributes , according to the press, of a criminal face. Many of the leading newspapers of the day heartily supported the military tribunal's verdict of guilty. Mother, widow, businesswoman, and a deeply pious Catholic, Mary Surratt seemed an unlikely assassin's accomplice. The Union had long suffered from the skillful spying perpetrated by cunning and seductive female Confederate agents, leaving little room for empathy for Surratt. To Northerners, her sex and mature age only amplified the perceived depravity of the southern character. But Surratt's punishment shocked the nation. Within hours of her hanging, people all across the country expressed horror and revulsion over her death. Days later, public sentiment began to change dramatically. For some Americans, Mary Surratt was an innocent woman trapped in Booth's murderous web, then subjected to a vengeful and bloodthirsty federal military tribunal. Her supporters accused the military tribunal that tried her and the other co-conspirators with illegally prosecuting civilians. Eager news reporters featured these accusations in their papers, claiming that the military court suppressed exculpatory evidence and allowed false testimony given by government witnesses against Mary to go unchallenged. Sympathy forMary increased dramatically in the weeks after her execution, bolstering what would...

The Trial in American Life

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewFull AccessThe Trial in American LifeMichael C. Harlow M.D., J.D.Michael C. Harlow M.D., J.D.Search for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 Jun 2008https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2008.59.6.701AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail The book The Trial in American Life examines the impact of high-profile trials on American culture. In this book, Robert Ferguson, a professor of law, literature, and criticism at Columbia University, explores how popular trials develop into an expression of consensus and discord for American society, with public sentiment often affecting a trial's development and outcome. Part 1 of the book examines the various literal and symbolic roles that trial participants play. The American trial is a ritual designed to foster respect for the legal process and participation by antagonistic parties. The ultimate symbolic goal of a trial is an expression and acceptance of communal justice. However, highly controversial cases, such as the Scopes Trial about evolution, can have the opposite effect of polarizing American society regarding a particular issue.Part 2 of the book reviews a constellation of controversial trials that helped shape American history. The first such occurrence was the trial of former Vice-President Aaron Burr on charges of treason. This trial became a proxy referendum on Thomas Jefferson's presidency. This trial displayed the pubic and political pressures placed on an independent judiciary from a controversial trial.During the prelude and strife of the American Civil War, controversial trials became metaphors for the emerging American experience. The 1859 trial of John Brown after his failed raid at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, received immediate national coverage via the telegraph. During his trial, Brown redefined himself from a failed, violent radical into a martyr for human freedom. The public response to this trial was heightened Southern fears of a slave rebellion and inflamed passions among Northern abolitionists, accelerating the nation's course toward civil war.The book's discussion of Abraham Lincoln's assassination and subsequent trials of alleged assassination conspirators reveal how public fear and rage can nullify a defendant's due-process right to a fair trial. In the trial of Mary Surratt, one of the codefendants charged with conspiracy, her conviction was based on circumstantial evidence, with the ruling military tribunal intentionally suppressing evidence of Surratt's innocence. Prosecutors crafted Mary Surratt into a key figure of the conspiracy, resulting in her public demonization even after her execution.The trial of the 1887 Chicago Haymarket Massacre defendants exemplified how public tensions regarding entire segments of American society can manifest into a vast injustice. In this case, dozens of policemen and labor protesters were killed after an explosion and were subsequently linked to immigrant anarchists. In the wake of the killings, several innocent anarchist activists were convicted and sentenced to death by a prejudicial jury and judge. The trial outcome exacerbated American fears of new immigrants and the threat of anarchist terrorism.American mass hysteria regarding the specter of domestic enemies was revisited in the courts during the Red Scare of the 1950s. The book portrays the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of espionage. Although evidence indicates that the Rosenbergs were agents of Soviet intelligence, it is unclear that they had any role in passing atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union, the charge for which they were both convicted and executed. During sentencing, the presiding judge justified the death sentences for the Rosenbergs as a means of deterring other Americans from committing espionage. The American public vilified the Rosenbergs as the tangible embodiment of a nebulous Communist menace lurking on American shores, in part due to highly sensationalized and biased media trial coverage.Part 3 of the book discusses the impact of modern media on trial proceedings. With the advent of modern technology, controversial trials have been distorted into high entertainment for commercial gain. The result is a skewed public understanding of the criminal justice process, increased potential for externally influenced trial outcomes, and heightened societal conflict over identified trial issues. Ferguson suggests that such negative outcomes could be minimized if trials were televised without interruption, commercials, or media commentary. He speculates that such modifications would enhance both public understanding and validation of American trials. This book offers a broad view of American trials throughout history and their impact on America. It is of value to both the general and academic reader interested in America's legal development. Ferguson's lucid writing style makes The Trial in American Life an enjoyable read. Dr. Harlow is a clinical instructor at the Department of Psychiatry, Sanford School of Medicine, University of South Dakota, Sioux Falls. FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 59Issue 6 June, 2008Pages 701-701PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES June 2008 Volume 59 Number 6 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 June 2008 Published in print 1 June 2008

Abraham Lincoln: Portrayed in the Collections of the Indiana Historical Society (review)

Reviewed by: Abraham Lincoln: Portrayed in the Collections of the Indiana Historical Society Robert E. May Abraham Lincoln: Portrayed in the Collections of the Indiana Historical Society. Edited by Harold Holzer. (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press, 2006. x, 253 pp. Cloth $49.95, ISBN 0-87197-201-7.) This lavishly illustrated, coffee-table-type volume by the prolific Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer takes measure of the Indiana Historical Society's growing importance in Lincoln studies. In 2003, the IHS supplemented approximately 300 pieces of Lincolniana in its holdings by acquiring roughly 800 items from the Jack L. Smith Lincoln Graphics Collection. Around the [End Page 137] same time, the society purchased the Daniel R. Weinberg Lincoln Conspirators Collection (artifacts, photographs, pamphlets, etc.) about Lincoln's assassination and the original collodion wet-plate negative of Alexander Gardner's famous 1863 portrait of Lincoln. Sculptor Daniel C. French later relied on this image for his Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Holzer divides his work into six sections: (1) a fifty-seven-page introduction to printmaking about Lincoln; (2) 141 pages about the Smith collection; (3) sixteen pages on the Weinberg collection; (4) three pages on the Gardner glass plate negative; (5) an eighteen-page survey of the society's other pictures about Lincoln and his times; and (6) a twelve-page treatment of the society's Lincoln-related manuscript holdings (in various collections). For each section (when applicable), Holzer describes the IHS's subdivisions of the material and provides separate listings for each item by title, often inserting annotations within the listings. Most descriptions identify artist or publisher, date, medium, physical dimensions, framing status, and how the item is cataloged. About 150 well-chosen reproductions, some in color, accompany the text, including such intriguing ephemera as an undated metal cigar company sign emphasizing Lincoln's call for malice toward none and a fifty-cent currency note from the Reconstruction period. The IHS Press positioned many images on or directly opposite the page where the relevant annotation appears, making cross-referencing easy and straightforward. Manuscripts are arranged by type (by Lincoln, to Lincoln, Certificates and Endorsements, about Lincoln) and date. Holzer's introduction explores such subjects as printmakers' reactions to Lincoln's presidential nomination in 1860, their prioritizing marketability over partisanship, how Mathew Brady's portrait photographs of Lincoln influenced lithographers and engravers, how Lincoln's growing a beard following his 1860 election upset traditional rhythms of political printmaking, and the transformation of Lincoln's image as the war progressed. Holzer argues that prints conveyed a "quintessentially civilian" (22) image of Lincoln almost to war's end by failing to embed him in the presence of military figures. He also observes that in the wake of the Emancipation Proclamation printmakers hesitated before ultimately portraying Lincoln as a great liberator, but that they never wearied of associating him with George Washington or presenting him in family contexts, even though he spent relatively little time with his wife and children during the war. These images and annotations address, but cannot resolve, many issues of concern in current Lincoln scholarship. Is it significant, for example, that Lincoln was photographed with his son Tad, but never with his wife Mary? They also remind us that the doctoring of photographs is about as old as the taking of them. Thus, Mathew Brady "perfected the concept of composite images by grouping individual photographs into a single photograph" (86), and a supposed [End Page 138] photograph of Lincoln funeral proceedings in Indianapolis is actually one of a historical reenactment since heavy rain impaired photography on the day of the actual event. It is unfortunate that this book lacks an index, and I question Holzer's strategy of repeating annotations word for word in cases when they apply to more than one image. But this publication provides an invaluable introduction to the Lincoln materials in Indianapolis and demands slots on the bookshelves of both Lincoln scholars and buffs alike. [End Page 139] Robert E. May Purdue University Copyright © 2008 The Kent State University Press

The Trial of the Lincoln Assassination Conspirators

For President Abraham Lincoln, things looked brighter on Friday, April 14, 1865 than they had for a long time. Five days earlier, General Robert E. Lee effectively ended the long nightmare of the Civil War by surrendering the Army of Northern Virginia, and just the previous day, the city of Washington celebrated the war's end by illuminating every one of its public building with candles. Candles also burned in most private homes, causing a city paper to describe the nation's capital as all ablaze with glory. The President decided he could finally afford an evening of relaxation: he would attend a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in downtown Washington. On May 1, 1865, President Johnson issued an order that the alleged conspirators be tried before a nine-person military commission. Testimony began in the Lincoln assassination conspiracy trial on May 12, just three days after the prisoners were first asked if they would like to have legal counsel. The rules of the Commission made the position of the defendants even more grave: conviction could come on a simple majority vote and a majority of two-thirds could impose the death sentence. Over the course of the next seven weeks, the Commission would hear from 361 witnesses. As the witnesses paraded to the stand, spectators lucky enough to get admission passes from Major General Hunter would move in and out of the nonchalant atmosphere of the courtroom.

"Words for the hour": a new anthology of American Civil War poetry

Recaptures the astonishing outpouring of poetry in response to the Civil War Words for the Hour presents a readable and illuminating account of the Civil War, told through the words of poets North and South. From bathos to profound philosophical meditation and sorrow, the range of these poems illuminates the complexity of their era while also revealing the continuing power of this turning point in American history to speak to readers in the present day. The volume is divided into three parts, each offering a different perspective on the poetry generated by the war. Part I samples the extraordinary range of poems written immediately preceding and during the war and published in popular periodicals, providing a kind of poetic newspaper account as one might have read it then - from the early days of optimistically heralded victory on both sides, through the mounting casualties and brutal deaths of the long middle years, to the war's conclusion and President Lincoln's assassination. Viewing the struggle from many different vantage points gives the reader access to the ways that people from various backgrounds experienced the trajectory of the war. Civilians and soldiers, free blacks and proponents of slavery, women and men from Massachusetts and Virginia and from recently admitted states and barely developed territories, writers with their eyes on the national political stage and those focused on personal domestic issues: these are the multiple voices of America responding to the war. Part II includes substantial selections of poems by writers who published extensively in response to the conflict, providing more complex and comprehensive perceptions of the war. These poets include not just well-known figures such as Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and John Greenleaf Whittier, but also African American poets George Moses Horton and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and Southern poets Henry Timrod and Sarah Piatt. Part III offers poems by two poets who did not publish during their lifetimes, but had strong imaginative responses to the conflict, thus giving a sense of the long reach of the war as a defining national experience. One of these two poets (Emily Dickinson) is now renowned while the other (Obadiah Ethelbert Baker) is first published in this volume. Words for the Hour is indeed new among anthologies of Civil War poetry not only in its wide range of poems by popular, anonymous, and now canonical poets but also in its informational apparatus. A historical timeline listing major battles and events of the war begins the volume, and historical photographs or lithographs introduce each section of poems. The book also includes a substantial introduction, a glossary of important names and terminology relevant to understanding the poems, and biographical sketches for all the poets whose work is included.

The Travels, Arrest, and Trial of John H. Surratt (review)

Reviewed by: The Travels, Arrest, and Trial of John H. Surratt Rory T. Conley Isacsson, Alfred . The Travels, Arrest, and Trial of John H. Surratt. (Middletown, New York: Vestigium Press. 2003. Pp. vi, 40. Paperback.) As a one-time associate of John Wilkes Booth and the son of Mary Surratt, John H. Surratt's involvement in the various plots against Lincoln made him a person of interest to government investigators and historians. Originally delivered as an address to the Surratt Society, Isacsson's brief work follows the journeys of Surratt from the moment he first learned of Lincoln's assassination, until November, 1868, when the government's legal proceedings against him were dropped. Isacsson shows that Surratt was aided in his escape from federal authorities by certain Roman Catholic clerics in Canada and Europe. However, in asserting that there was a "clerical connection" involved in aiding Surratt, a former seminarian, Isacsson seems to be trying to prove too much from the admittedly meager documentary trail he had to work with. It would seem that the few priests who helped Surratt did so out of belief in his innocence rather than out of some unproven involvement in the Confederate cause. Indeed, after the hanging of Surratt's mother in the summer of 1865, he probably could have found sympathizers wherever newspapers were read. An interesting essay, Isaccson's work would be of greater interest to the general reader if he had filled in some of the details of the story which evidently were well known to his original audience at the Surratt Society. Rory T. Conley Archdiocese of Washington Copyright © 2006 The Catholic University of America Press