A Night of Horrors: A Historical Thriller about the 24 Hours of Lincoln's Assassination (34 page)

Author’s Note

No one can write about the events of April 14
^th
, 1865, without first assessing a mountain of research and materials that are available to the curious and scholarly. In an effort to make my novel a
historical
thriller, I both researched the events surrounding the events of April 14
^th
, 1865, as well as the events and their timing on that day. I have also taken advantage of the letters and historical documents of Lincoln and Booth that are available to use as dialogue in the story itself. For example, while we do not have a record of what Booth said to his conspirators at the Herndon House just a couple of hours before they attacked Lincoln and Seward, I have put words into his mouth that he actually wrote in his journals and letters in the months leading up to the assassination attempt. This allowed me the opportunity to use his own words for some of his key dialogue, but I have, obviously, violated historical veracity in doing so.

I also know that there are many writers, historians, and Civil War lovers who have studied, re-studied, and developed their own theories about these events, the sequence in which they occurred, and the things that were said. Some will agree whole-heartedly with my fictional retelling and others will take serious issue with my story. Elements that we take as gospel because of our elementary school history classes, such as Booth breaking his leg when he leapt from the President’s box onto the stage, have been challenged by a number of experts in recent years. To all I simply say, this is a
novel
. I have done my best to write a highly accurate thriller, but I have focused on the thrilling aspects of these historical events. I have written a novel, which is a
fictional
treatment of the history.

What follows is a shortened version of my comprehensive bibliography and a limited set of footnotes to provide credit for those few passages where I have quoted from sources for dialogue in my novel. For a complete bibliography and other materials about April 14
^th
, 1865, please visit my website:

www.johnberrynovels.com
.

Brief Bibliography

Participants in the Events

Bates, David Homer.
Lincoln in the Telegraph Office: Recollections of the United States Military Telegraph Corps During the Civil War.
University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

Booth, John Wilkes. Rhodehamel, John and Taper, Louise, ed.
“Right or Wrong, God Judge Me,” The Writings of John Wilkes Booth
. University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1997.

Clarke, Asia Booth. Alford, Terry, ed.
John Wilkes Booth, A Sister’s Memoir
. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, 1996.

Good, Timothy S., ed.
We Saw Lincoln Shot, One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts
. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, 1995.

Keckley, Elizabeth.
Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House
. Penguin Books, New York, 2005.

Leale, Charles A.
Lincoln’s Last Hours.
1909, republished by Leale Estate via Kessinger Publishing.

Lincoln, Abraham. Basler, Roy P., ed.
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
. University Press, New Brunswick, NY, 1953.

Nicolay, John G. and Hay, John.
Abraham Lincoln, A History
. The Century Co., New York, 1890.

Pittman, Ben, ed.
The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators.
Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin, New York, 1865.

Seward, Fanny. Johnson, Patricia Carley, ed. “I Have Supped Full of Horrors,”
American Heritage
, vol 10. October 1959.

Taylor, Tom.
Our American Cousin.
1858

The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies
. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901.

Weichmann, Louis J. Risvold, Floyd E., ed.
A True History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the Conspiracy of 1865
. Vintage Books, New York, 1975.

Welles, Gideon.
Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson.
Houghton & Mifflin Company, Boston and New York 1911.

Historians and Writers

(I have included here the core set of modern historians that I have found invaluable in their research and writing on Abraham Lincoln, his cabinet, and the events of April 14th, 1865.)

Donald, David Herbert.
Lincoln.
Touchstone, New York, 1995.

Goodwin, Doris Kearns.
Team of Rivals, The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.
Simon & Schuster, New York, 2005.

Kaufman, Michael W.
American Brutus, John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies
. Random House, NY, 2004.

Reck, W. Emerson.
A. Lincoln, His Last 24 Hours
. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, Jefferson, North Carolina, and London, 1987.

Steers, Jr., Edward.
Blood on the Moon, The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
. The University Press of Kentucky, 2001.

Swanson, James L.
Manhunt, The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer
. Harper Perennial, NY, 2007.

Thomas, Benjamin P. and Hyman, Harold M.
Stanton: The Life and Times of Lincoln’s Secretary of War
. Alfred A Knop, New York, 1962.

Winik, Jay.
April 1865, The Month that Saved America.
Harper Perennial, New York, 2001.

Limited Footnotes

(These are not meant to be exhaustive but to provide appropriate credit for the handful of cases when I used actual writings to serve as dialogue, primarily for John Wilkes Booth.)

Throughout the Novel

All written cards and letters of Abraham Lincoln from his last day that are in the novel come from
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
, Vol VIII, pp 410-413.

All orders and telegraphs written by Stanton come from the
A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.

“Paperwork”

 
“Years ago,” he started, already smiling…” Lincoln’s story about the Maying party and the Cresswell conversation come from
A. Lincoln His Last Twenty-Four Hours
, pp 24-25.

“A Plan Falls into Place”

“To My Countrymen…” This letter is recorded in a number of different sources. I have quoted passages from that version in
Right or Wrong, God Judge Me
, pp 147-150. Booth gave a letter to John Matthews on the day of the assassination to give to the newspaper. Matthews, however, burned it out of fear of being incriminated himself. He recreated the letter a number of years later; however, it is most certainly based on a different letter, the “To Whom it May Concern” letter that had been published between the assassination and Matthews’ recreation (see notes on pages 150-153).

“The Final Word”

“I tell you, sirs, now is the time to act…” This passage is taken from the draft of a speech that Booth wrote, but never gave, shortly after the first election of Lincoln. See
Right or Wrong, God Judge Me
, pp 58-59.

“Oh how I have…” This passage is from Booth’s famous “To Whom It May Concern” letter. See
Right or Wrong, God Judge Me
, pp 124-127.

About the Author

John Charles Berry has spent more than 20 years as an executive in the High Tech and Banking industries. During that time he has also published articles, speeches, and fiction in
Newsweek
,
The Financial Times
,
The Harvard Business Review, Vital Speeches of the Day
, and
After Hours
. He earned a Ph.D. in English. He resides in Charlotte, NC, with his beloved wife and children.

Visit the author's website at
http://www.johnberrynovels.com

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