Manhunt by James L. Swanson

Over the weekend, I finished off Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer by James L. Swanson.

While not a comprehensive, scholarly work, the book is a brisk, compelling read. Swanson’s prose is occasionally a bit grandiose, and he’s prone to more than a bit of speculation, but the book remains a page-turning, action-packed volume that I’d strongly recommend to anybody even remotely interested in the topic. (Read Ochuk’s excellent review here).

Here are a few notable tidbits gleaned from the text:

-Booth picked a motley crew of conspirators for his plan to decapitate the restored nation’s government. David Herold was an immature 22 year old who idolized Booth, with little will of his own. Lewis Powell went berzerk in his attempt to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward, disfiguring the Secretary, nearly beating Seward’s son to death with the butt of his pistol, and stabbing three others (Booth himself was appalled at the grisly details when he read them). George Atzerodt was a dim-witted German who managed to bumble his way to the gallows along with the rest of Booth’s accomplices.

-Lincoln’s last words were, “This play would make a really good movie.”

-Booth’s mustache has been preserved in formaldehyde so that future generations can appreciate its fullness and fine grooming.

-The famous scene of Booth’s last stand at Garrett’s Farm in Virginia is revealed by Swanson to be something of a joke. The Cavalry regiment appeared to be stunningly unprepared to actually find Booth, and botched much of the job, like a gang of Keystone Cops. After a series of inept, halting negotiations, they eventually just lit the tobacco barn on fire. Failing to give orders to their men, it should have come as no suprise that one enterprising soldier pointed his gun through a crack and shot Booth through the neck.

-While Booth and Herold were hiding out in a Maryland pine thickett for four days, it is believed that Booth invented Christian rap.

-Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s Secretary of War, directed the manhunt for Booth and his accomplices. He had a beard and could not tell time.

-The soldier who shot Booth was an odd duck named Boston Corbett. A high religious man, he adopted the name Boston after the city where he was baptized. In shame after having been tempted by a woman of the night, Corbett took it upon himself to cut out his own testicles. (It’s too bad for Boston Corbett the books of Joshua Harris weren’t around back then.)

-Booth was apparently “double dared” to kill Lincoln by his older brother Edwin Booth.

-Booth lived about two strange, agonizing hours after he was shot and paralyzed. Union soldiers dragged him to the farmhouse porch and propped him up, where commanders carefully documented his last words, in hopes that he might reveal that he was part of some conspiracy they could tie to the Confederate government. He had halting conversations asking how they caught him, and while he was still conscious they searched his pockets and rummaged through his belongings.

-Judging by the many photographs and contemporary accounts of Booth’s appearance, scholars believe he probably used Pert Plus.

-Lewis Powell’s head was removed by an undertaker when his body was disinterred in 1869. The skull was actually discovered in the Smithsonian Anthropology Department (as “Specimen Number 2244″) in 1992. The skull was reunited with the rest of his body and given a Christian burial next to the remains of his mother in 1994. (not kidding)

-In the late 1986s, General Mills experimented with a new cereal they were going to call, “J.W. Booth’s Satisfactory Grain Pellets”, a rooty, millet-based cereal to be marketed to history buffs and Confedrerate sympathizers. The project was abandoned in favor of Wackies.

-Inexplicably, Booth’s horse was named Abraham Lincoln, Part II.