Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2006

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 1

Chapters 2-3

Chapters 4-5

Chapters 6-7

Chapters 8-9

Chapter 10-Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Background

Literary Context: Historical True Crime

Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer combines elements of traditional narrative historical writing and true crime. Like most traditional historical narratives, it relies heavily on documented evidence including letters, media reports, personal journals, and academic studies. These sources are documented at length in the Bibliography and Notes that follow the narrative text. As James Swanson, the author, describes in the opening “Note to the Reader,” “All the characters are real and were alive during the great manhunt of April 1865. Their words are authentic. Indeed, all text appearing within quotation marks comes from original sources…” (xiii). This is what one would expect from a non-fiction historical narrative. However, the note is necessary because much of the narrative is written in the mode of a crime thriller.

Swanson relies on poetic language to illustrate the events and in some cases speculates about the emotions and state of mind of the figures in the story. This gives the historical events immediacy and creates suspense. For example, while Booth is hiding out in a pine thicket with his loyal compatriot David Herold, Swanson writes, “No doubt [Booth] reassured Herold about the very things he most needed to convince himself—they would cross the Potomac, they would find succor in Virginia, they would survive” (207). This characterization of Booth’s frame of mind is based on educated speculation drawn from the documented evidence Swanson has incorporated into his narrative. It makes Booth seem like a well-rounded character rather than a figure in distant history. This combination of research and somewhat imaginative details is present throughout the text to provide color and momentum without detracting from its accuracy.

Historical Context: The Civil War

The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln took place in the waning days of the Civil War, when victory of the Union over the Confederacy seemed nearly assured. His presidency was always closely tied with this war, the bloodiest in American history. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) ran on a platform that included opposition to expanding slavery to the western territories, which the slave-holding states saw as a threat. His victory in this election was a major contributing factor to the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 as the slave-holding Confederacy declared it would secede, or leave, the United States. However, by 1864, when Lincoln won re-election, the Confederacy had lost several key battles, and it was increasingly likely they would lose the war. This was made most apparent in the destruction of the capital of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia, on April 3, 1865, and Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Union forces at Appomattox, Virginia, on April 9, 1865. The fall of Richmond and Lee’s surrender at Appomattox were seen by Confederates and sympathizers like John Wilkes Booth as a fatal blow to their cause. One interpretation of Booth’s decision to assassinate President Lincoln on April 14, 1865, is as a last desperate attempt to turn the tide of the Civil War after the humiliation of Lee’s defeat.

The American Civil War is often described by historians as a war of “brother against brother” because of the way it divided families. While it was a war largely defined by territory, where the southern states fought against the northern states, as seen in the book, people’s loyalties were not so neatly divided by geography. John Wilkes Booth himself came from the Union state of Maryland. He was able to find people to include in his conspiracies in the Union state of New York and even in Montreal, Canada. A major figure in the story, Dr. Samuel Mudd, a supporter of the Confederacy, had a cousin who was known as a staunch supporter of the Union. This complex web of geography, loyalty, and family ties is a key aspect of the Civil War and a motif in Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer.