Lincoln’s Last Days: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever

I’ve been to Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. and I’ve stood in the Presidential box where Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and President Abraham Lincoln sat watching the comedy Our American Cousin with Mayor Rathborn and his finance’ Clara Harris.  It is chilling to read the account of what fateful event took place in that theater.

Lincoln’s Last Days is an excellent, highly accessible account of the events leading to the end of the bitterly fought Civil War, the conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, and the chasing of the assassins.  Filled with archival photos, lithographs, maps and artifacts from the period, the story unfolds in a highly readable text.

Most chilling to me was the reading about the brutal attack on Secretary of State William Seward and his family in their home known as the Old Club in Washington, D.C.  by co-conspirator Lewis Powell. Lincoln’s assassination took place in the Presidential theater booth. Even after Wilkes’s attack on the President, the formidable strength of Lincoln’s physical body was remarkable considering the grave, mortal wounds to his head.

 Students will be fascinated by this nonfiction book!