Conspiracy Theories: The Lincoln Assassination

Chapter 1 of Chasing Lincoln’s Killer by James L. Swanson is about the assassination plan of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. This assassination plan had strengths and weaknesses. John Wilkes Booth was a twenty-six year old actor who was a strong, loyal, and passionate confederate. Booth and his conspirators had a mission to take down some of the top leaders of the United States of America - the President Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Johnson, and U.S Secretary of State William Seward. In assessing this plan, which is similar to any other assassination plan, it includes good and bad situations with conspirators, location/time, and also weapons.

No matter how many news reports and newspapers people scour through, there is always a better chance than not that key information is missed because of a biased article writer. Through reading the book, Chasing Lincoln’s Killer, no side is left out, and while Swanson is a writer from the North, he manages to cover the entire story of Booth’s manhunt, including the many hidden facts as well as the motive behind Booth’s attack. Through primary sources and other documents, the text is quite informative, and therefore is a must read for anyone and everyone. It does matter if people read this book, because it reveals so much more than what most people know, about this horrific incident. Every day, manhunts and assassinations take place around the

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that,” Martin Luther Kink Jr. once said. This applies to the Civil War especially. The three works, Chasing Lincoln’s Killer by James L. Swanson, Killing Lincoln produced by National Geographic, and the excerpt from The Plot to Kill Lincoln by Karen Zeinhert all use the imagery of light and darkness when talking about Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, and the Civil War in general, though they do not all elaborate on all of the conspirators involved.

The conspiracy to kill Abraham Lincoln was not a one-man job. Many of the Confederates did not like Lincoln's ways of thinking which resulted in hostility toward the president. John Wilkes Booth was one of those people who hated Lincoln. Even though Booth was the assassin, he could not have done it without the help of his peers. Obviously Booth deserved to die because of the crime he had committed, but what about the others? Mary Surratt, David Herold, Lewis Powell, and George Atzerodt were the co-conspirators most involved in Lincoln's assassination. In the book Chasing Lincoln's Killer, all of these conspirators were all hung for their part in the conspiracy, but did they all deserve it?; George Atzerodt may have been the exception.

This theory explained Abraham Lincoln's devastating pre-assassination on 1865. After Many attempts to kidnap Lincoln but failed to work out until the Confederacy surrendered to the North. The well-known stage performing artist John Wilkes Booth thought the president was determined to destroy the constitution, and he turned to the thoughts of assassination. This theory focused on how Booth and co-conspirators come up with their changes plans of murdering the president and two of his possible successors, Booth and his co-conspirators hoped to throw the U.S. government into disarray. Looking back with the abduction plot established, the question remains, who was really behind and included in the death of the

For example, Booth gives evidence that Atzerodt was involved in the conspiracies when he wrote in his diary, “for six months we had worked to capture, but our cause being lost, something decisive and great must be done. But its failure was owing to others, who did not strike their country with a heart.”(Booth 1) The excerpt from the diary gives proof that Booth and his conspirators, including Atzerodt, planned to kidnap Lincoln, but the fact that the Southern cause was being lost due to his presidency influenced all the conspirators to put an end to their believed tyranny through the assassination plot. Nevertheless, Atzerodt was forced to be involved in the assassination conspiracy by Booth. According to the novel Chasing Lincoln’s Killer, “Booth then threatened Atzerodt, implying that he might as well kill Johnson, because if he didn’t, Booth would accuse him anyway and get him hanged.”(Swanson 27) This shows that Atzerodt did not want to be involved in the assassination plot and was not as supportive of the plot as the other conspirators in their plan to overthrow the government. Atzerodt was threatened by Booth that he would be captured anyways if he did not carry out the mission since it would make him

John F. Kennedy, the 35th United States President, was assassinated on November 22, 1963 during a parade while he and his wife were visiting Dallas, Texas. The Warren Commission has concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone shooter, was the man who committed the crime. Over the years after Kennedy’s death, people have come up with other ideas of why and how this president died. One of many conspiracies was made by his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, saying that Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson had something to do with it. She believed that he wanted to become the president so badly that he would kill to get it. In this conspiracy, it is said that Johnson hired two men to assassinate John F. Kennedy. At least one of the gunmen was supposedly waiting in the

Julius Caesar and Abraham Lincoln were similar in a lot of ways. Both were very famous political figures known for dealing with civil wars amongst their countries. They also both supported the common people and wanted to advance their countries to be more modern. Caesar updated the Roman Calendar and contributed to many reforms that helped the common people of his empire. Lincoln was a supporter of stopping the expansion of slavery which won him the popularity of the northern states. Similarly, the two politicians had supporters of their cause and people who went against them and strongly opposed the changes they made to the political systems of their individual countries. Another way the two were similar is that they were both assassinated

This had an impact on the Reconstruction period because if Lee wouldn’t have surrendered, the reconstruction period may have not been able to start until later on.

Chasing Lincoln’s Killer is a book about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, a past United States of America president. The introduction of the book is how John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln’s killer, and his accomplices, made a plan to kidnap the American president, but their plan failed. So, John Wilkes Booth and his little gang decide to kill the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of State in one night. John Wilkes Booth would kill the president at Ford’s theater, His accomplice George Atzerodt would kill the Vice President at the Vice President’s hotel room. Lewis Powell and David Herold would kill the Secretary of State.

To begin with, John Wilkes Booth didn't motivate the South, one of the main goals of his. The South had already given up at the time. The whole point of killing Lincoln was for Southern glory, which he didn't achieve. As stated here, "But he also wanted to initiate the uneasy task of bringing the all but defeated South back into the new, more improved Union" ("Abraham Lincoln Biography"). The South hardly had any stamina left. They were hanging on, but barely. Nothing was going to help them. Booth shooting Lincoln didn't help, because even though the South hadn't admitted defeat, they had done everything but. This shows that the South couldn't be motivated because they had already given up, even if they hadn't lost yet. The South was fighting a losing battle, and nothing anyone did could help.

June 22, 1865 marked the end of the Civil War of the United States. Slavery had been practiced in North America since the colonial days. It was more common in the southern region of the United States, where most of the plantations were located. They needed slaves to help gather cotton and other plantation crops. The North was an industrial area, so they had less of a need for raw manpower than the South. Eventually, the North started fighting for the rights of slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation was announced by President Abraham Lincoln. The end of the Civil War brought about the final end to slavery in the United States, weakened the South, and lead to the death of Abraham Lincoln.

It’s the year 1976, the United States Senate has just called for a new inquiry into the infamous assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who was shot in 1963 during his own motorcade in Dallas, TX while running for re-election. The CIA along with the FBI were coaxed into releasing new documents on Lee Harvey Oswald, and individuals who had not given evidence previously were persuaded to come forward. Pieces of evidence such as sound recordings and photographs were being subjected to scientific research analysis using more modern equipment. In 1979 the House Select Committee on Assassinations, or (HCSA), finally came to a verdict that Lee Harvey Oswald shot three times at the president; one of which, hitting his head and killing him. It was also concluded that a fourth shot was taken from ‘the grassy knoll’, which was something that was contradicting to the statement given by the Warren Commission 16 years earlier. Another conclusion stated that the John F. Kennedy assassination was the result of a government conspiracy.

Many of America's leaders were assassinated such as John F. Kennedy and MLK. The motives to their assassinations were most from disagreements which is the same motive for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. On April 14th 1865, John Wilkes, shot and killed Abraham Lincoln at a play at ford Theatre . John Wilkes Booth was born in Maryland and was born in 1838. He lived in the north during the civil War but but yet he still didn’t agree with Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln's assassination was not justified because he freed slaves and he was a great leader.

As Booth began his bold escape, the fate of Abraham Lincoln was unknown. According to “Abraham,” Charles Leale heard the pistol fire and Mary’s scream, so the twenty-three year old doctor sprinted towards the wounded President . When Leale reached Lincoln, the young doctor saw the physical condition of the President. “He found the president slumped in his chair, paralyzed and struggling to breath” (History.com). “Assassination” states that the doctor reacted quickly by ripping the President’s shirt open for a physical examination, but Leale could not find the bullet wound. With that diagnosis, the focus shifted from saving the President to moving him out of Ford’s Theater (2009). “Abraham” states that Lincoln was transported to a home across the street and placed in a bed. Lincoln’s Vice President, Cabinet, and friends assembled in the house. When the Surgeon General arrived at the home, he said that Lincoln would not survive the night. Now, all of those who had come to see the President could only wait for his death. The moment of