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| Book Reviews | The Lincoln Assassination: Crime After Lincoln died, he was carried approval of Lincoln’s assassination suf- and Punishment, Myth and by train to Springfield, Ill., for burial. fered extralegal capital punishment. Memory In the book’s second essay, Richard Thomas P. Turner, in his essay, quotes E. Sloan writes that the “train bearing an Associated Press manager: Edited by Harold Holzer, Craig L. Lincoln’s casket, along with the funeral Symonds, and Frank J. Williams party, traveled 1,600 miles and stopped I heard the crack of a revolver Fordham University Press, New York, NY, 2010. in 10 grief-stricken cities between and a man fell in the center of 259 pages, $27.95. Washington, D.C., and Springfield, the room. His assailant stood per- Illinois, over a 12-day period.” But fectly composed with a smoking Sloan’s essay is about the funeral in revolver in his hand, and justified New York City, which followed the his action by saying: “He said it REVIEWED BY HEN R Y CO H EN casket’s being transferred to a ferry served Lincoln right.” There was at Jersey City, and then conveyed in no arrest, no one would have The introduction to this collection two funeral processions in Manhattan, dared arrest the man. He walked of essays notes that Abraham Lincoln’s from the ferry dock to as far uptown out a hero. I never knew who murder, coming “at the end of a brutal, as 34th Street. The funeral car was led, he was. punishing four-year war, and in the according to the Sloan, citing the New midst of widespread national rejoicing York Times, “by sixteen black horses John Wilkes Booth was killed 12 at the restoration of piece, … seemed shrouded in black and sixteen African- days after he shot Lincoln. Eight of so gratuitous, so irrational, and so American grooms,” or, according to a his alleged co-conspirators were sub- utterly un-American that it defied logic. description in the caption of a picture sequently tried and convicted by a …” The nine essays in The Lincoln accompanying the essay, “by 16 gray military tribunal consisting of nine mili- Assassination—all of them excellent— horses richly caparisoned with ostrich tary officers, only one of whom was a explore, in the words of the introduc- plumes and cloth of black trimmed lawyer. Four of the defendants were tion, “the legal, cultural, political, and with silver bullion.” Sloan reports that condemned to the gallows, and four to even emotional consequences of the “[a]t least half a million people wit- prison terms. As this book’s essays by assassination.” nessed the solemn Lincoln funeral pro- Frank J. Williams, Edward Steers Jr., and The first essay in the book, which cession in New York, more than in any Richard Nelson Current all relate, five of is by two of the book’s editors (Harold other city. Approximately 100,000 men the nine officers on the military tribu- Holzer and Frank J. Williams), is titled, marched in it. Between 110,000 and nal recommended that the one female “Lincoln’s Deathbed in Art and Memory: 120,000 people gazed upon Lincoln’s defendant, Mary Surratt, be granted The ‘Rubber Room’ Phenomenon.” face at City Hall.” clemency, but she was hanged after After Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre In “Not Everybody Mourned the chief prosecutor, Judge Advocate on Apr. 14, 1865, six days after General Lincoln’s Death,” Thomas P. Lowry General Joseph Holt (the subject of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, he was tells of soldiers, sailors, and a few civil- a biographical essay in this book by carried across the street to the Petersen ians who were prosecuted for having Elizabeth D. Leonard), apparently con- boarding house, where he was placed expressed approval of the assassina- cealed the clemency recommendation on a bed in a small room, which may tion. Many of those he cites received a from President Andrew Johnson. be viewed by tourists today. Lincoln year or two in prison, but two received Frank J. Williams writes: died the next morning. Beginning less 10-year sentences. One of the two than two weeks later, lithographs of the had said, “I wish he had been killed Whether it was politically astute deathbed scene began to be produced long ago”; the other had said, “I’m to try the conspirators before a as memorials and for profit. Holzer and glad the old son of a b[----] is dead.” military commission or whether Williams’ essay reproduces more than James Walker of the 8th California the conspirators received fair tri- a dozen of these, and shows how, in Infantry combined these two senti- als before the commission, which the successive pictures, the deathbed ments, saying, “Abraham Lincoln was a they did not, is not the issue room grew larger and larger—thus, the long-sided Yankee son of a b[----] and here. The question is whether “rubber room” phenomenon—until one ought to have been killed long ago.” the United States had the legal such picture portrayed 47 people in the For this, Lowry writes, Walker was right to try the conspirators [who room—far more than could have fit in sentenced to be shot by a firing squad, were civilians] before a military it at one time. But accuracy was not the but, after claiming that, “[w]hile serving commission in the first place. concern; symbolism was. For exam- in Mexico I was wounded in the head ple, although Vice President Andrew by a musket ball, and when I drink to Williams addresses that question, as Johnson had not been at the scene, he excess I have no recollection of what well as the same question as it applies had to be included in the picture to transpires,” his sentence was mitigat- today to the prisoners at Guantánamo symbolize the peaceful succession in ed—Lowry does not say to what. the face of crisis. Another man who expressed REVIEWS continued on page 50 August 2010 | The Federal Lawyer | 49 REVIEWS continued from page 49 Bay. The temptation to compare the on the eight defendants on trial. were “very intelligent” or had served the situation in 1865 with that of today Michael W. Kauffman, in his essay in Union cause as soldiers. This was in fact must have been hard to resist, but The Lincoln Assassination, warns that Lincoln’s inclination, as he stated in his Williams should have resisted. He does the 5,010 handwritten pages of testimo- final speech, on Apr. 11, 1865. not have the space in an essay about ny from the 371 witnesses at the trial of Current then discusses some legends the Lincoln assassination to address the eight alleged conspirators constitute that grew up around the assassination, the current situation in the depth it an unreliable source of information for such as that Booth really escaped, and requires; the circumstances today are historians. This is because of the restric- that Booth had high-placed abettors continually changing; and, finally, tive rules of evidence favoring the pros- in the assassination scheme, including present-day politics unavoidably come ecution that were in place in 1865. The Jefferson Davis, Andrew Johnson, and into play. Williams writes, for example, rule on “defendant declarations,” for Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. that President Obama’s reversal of “his example, precluded out-of-court state- Current writes: original determination to end the mili- ments of the accused from being used tary commissions was an act of politi- in his own defense or against anyone Whatever help Booth had, the cal courage. Surely the president … but himself. Another rule restricted the crazy actor surely was the prime knew the ire such a decision would defense from introducing any evidence mover of his crazy plot. Its shape draw—especially from his most ardent except in response to evidence that the reveals the workings of his dis- campaign supporters.” This statement prosecution had introduced. This rule eased mind. The deed must be opens up Williams to the argument was so restrictive that, after a prosecu- done in the theater, before the that perhaps President Obama was not tion witness testified that two of the eyes of a crowd, because the particularly concerned about his most defendants had met with John Wilkes actor had to have an audience. ardent campaign supporters, because Booth on Jan. 15, the defense was not The theater was not a logical he knows that they have nowhere else permitted to bring in a witness to testify place, or would not have been to turn. Perhaps, instead, Obama was that the meeting actually took place on for an assassin whose sole con- concerned to immunize himself from Dec. 23; this was because the prosecu- cern was to kill and flee. charges from the right that he is soft on tion had not introduced evidence about terrorism. It would have been better not a meeting on Dec. 23. As a result, the Current concludes by discussing to have opened this can of worms in a trial transcript makes it appear as if the how the fact that Booth shot Lincoln book about the Lincoln assassination. defense denied that any meeting at all on Good Friday, the day that Jesus Why were the eight alleged conspir- had occurred. was crucified, has led to parallels ators tried by a military commission, The final essay in The Lincoln between the two martyrs frequently even though they were civilians? In his Assassination is the only one that is being drawn. essay, Edward Steers Jr. notes that the not new.

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