Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America

Killing Lincoln covers the history of the last few days of the civil war and the assassination of Lincoln. While it mostly sticks with the historical facts, the tone is far from that of a typical historical narrative. The author is a political commentator, and uses aspect of that style in the delivery. Much of the story is given as a countdown of Lincoln's time to live. The events in the life of Lincoln's assassin are covered in greater detail than the life of Lincoln. Various conspiracy theories are brought up. (Though they are generally acknowledged as unproven theories.) The end of the civil war is portrayed as a battle of wills. The Union had the rebels in a bind. However, the rebels somehow kept finding the will to fight. In one battle, the Union infantry failed to rise up for the killing blow. Because of that, they were all killed. In other cases, Union leadership failed to "finish the job", giving the rebels more time to fight. In the end, this let the Confederacy survive for a few more days. However, their cause was doomed.
Booth was an actor and a confederate die-hard. He had been part of plots to kidnap Lincoln. Eventually, he hatched on a plan to kill Lincoln and other leaders in order to cause chaos and give the south a chance to rise up. He carried out his part of the operation. However, his co-conspirators failed. One just got drunk rather than do his killing. Another managed to injure a bunch of people, but did not kill his target. Booth managed to elude capture for a few days, but eventually he was caught and killed. (Though the book mentions many men dying in the swamp search.) The other conspirators were hung. Ironically, Booth's action probably made things much worse for the south. The new president was more of a hardliner towards the south and less willing to follow the peaceful integration that Lincoln desired. Even the "pro-south" newspapers at the time heavily criticized the assassination.