Killing Lincoln By Bill O Reilly And Martin Dugard

Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard’s book, Killing Lincoln, is mainly about President Lincoln’s time as President of the United States. Little do people know that Lincoln was hated by many Americans. President Lincoln’s assassination was slowly being planned out by a murder named John Wilkes Booth. Despite his careful planning, Booth’s plans had to be suddenly changed at the last minute when his plans to change. Booth immediately had to come up with a new plan and go a total different route. Overall, this book gives a complete overlook of Lincoln’s few weeks alive and the aftermath of the assassination. This book was written to inform readers of the events before, during, and after the assassination of Lincoln with keen insight drawn from eye witness accounts.

The book, Killing Lincoln, has four different parts: “Total war”, “The Ideas of Death”, “The Long Good Friday”, and “The Chase”.

Part 1 - “Total War”: April 1, 1885, City Point, Virginia, fourteen days prior to President Lincoln’s assassination. While on the upper deck of steamboat River Queen, Lincoln is “unprotected and unafraid”. He is not too concerned over the matter of assassination; he just wants to know “When will

Northerners, who were celebrating the defeat of the Confederate army, wanted a speech from Lincoln. However, Lincoln was “in no mood to speak” (89). In the meantime, John Wilkes Booth, is now furious over the south’s defeat. “It crushes Booth to think that the South has lost. He shuts the idea out of his mind. Lee’s surrender, Booth believes, was a gross error in judgment.” (93) Booth wanted revenge. With that in mind, he contemplates a new plan to kill Lincoln. His new plan, one that involves attacking Lincoln in the Ford Theater. Booth states he will grab him in mid-performance, from the presidential box at Washington playhouse