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Killing Lincoln The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever Summary

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Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard attempts to dissect the assassination of the sixteenth president of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln. Rather than just telling the simple story of Lincoln being shot in the back of the head at the Ford Theatre, this book goes into great detail to show what various characters from this pivotal time in history were thinking, feeling, and trying to overcome. Bill O’Reilly is no stranger to writing books. Other pieces by Bill are: Killing Reagan, Killing Jesus, Killing Kennedy and many other great pieces of literature that go into great detail to explain the final days of major historical figures. The fact that O’Reilly has …show more content…

The goal of this section of the book is to expose the little details of the American Civil War that greatly impacted the future of a young United States. What this part really stresses is how close Robert E. Lee was to extending the war, which could have greatly changed the history of the United States. The time period of the war that this book focuses on is towards the end of the war. Lee’s men are incredibly out-numbered, starving, exhausted, and losing motivation to fight. It seems like at this point in the war, most of Lee’s men were beginning to realize that the odds of the Confederacy winning this gruesome, unnecessary war were slim to none. This could impact the motivation of any group of men fighting any kind of war. How could one be motivated to fight in a war that they know they are going to lose? This section of the book ends with a highly-detailed description of Lee surrendering to Grant. Lee never made it obvious to men of the Confederacy or the Union the fact that he had come to the point of surrender was internally and emotionally tearing him apart. Lee was always successful and rarely lost anything so one could understand how devastating of a day this was for General Robert E. …show more content…

One of the strongest strengths is the intricate detail used to summarize major historical events. “The authors succinctly describe the closing battles of the Civil War, the assassination, and its aftermath.” (Farrell, 2011) It is obvious that O’Reilly and Dugard took the appropriate amount of time need to adequately write this book. The pictures, inserted throughout the book used to help the reader understand what is going on and paint a mental picture, are also one of the strongest positives that this book possesses. As far as weakness go, there are few. The one thing that a reader may have an issue with is the way some accounts end if they are not used to, or do not like, cliffhanger endings. “The authors profess to be writing history that reads like a thriller, and their account of Lincoln's assassination makes ample use of tricks like cliffhanger endings” (Kirkus Reviews) Other than that, there is not much that a reader could complain about or have an issue

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