Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

by Edward Steers Jr.

Overview

Winner of the 2001 The Lincoln Group of New York's Award of Achievement A History Book Club Selection The assassination of Abraham Lincoln is usually told as a tale of a lone deranged actor who struck from a twisted lust for revenge. This is not only too simple an explanation; Blood on the Moon reveals that it is completely wrong. John Wilkes Booth was neither mad nor alone in his act of murder. He received the help of many, not the least of whom was Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd, the Charles County physician who has been portrayed as the innocent victim of a vengeful government. Booth was also aided by the Confederate leadership in Richmond. As he made his plans to strike at Lincoln, Booth was in contact with key members of the Confederate underground, and after the assassination these same forces used all of their resources to attempt his escape. Noted Lincoln authority Edward Steers Jr. introduces the cast of characters in this ill-fated drama, he explores why they were so willing to help pull the trigger, and corrects the many misconceptions surrounding this defining moment that changed American history. After completing an acclaimed career as a research scientist at the National Institutes of Health, Edward Steers Jr. has turned his research skills to the Lincoln assassination. He is the author of several books about the president, including The Trial.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813191515
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	10/21/2005
Pages:	402
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Edward Steers Jr. is the author of numerous books including Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Legends: Myths, Hoaxes, and Confabulations Associated with Our Greatest President, and The Lincoln Assassination Encyclopedia. He lives in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
The Apotheosis
You Are in Danger
All the World's a Stage
The Black Flag Is Raised
The South Wants Justice
The Key Connection
A Shift in Plans
A Day of Jubilation
Decision
Sic Semper Tyrannis
The Wound Is Mortal
Surrattsville
Dr. Mudd
Here in Despair
The Roundup
Virginia at Last!
The Cavalry Arrives
Tell Mother I Die for My Country
To Remove the Stain of Innocent Blood from the Land
The Aftermath: Rewriting History
Life after Death
Goodbye, Father Abraham
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Puts many of the myths and misconceptions to rest.

WTBF Radio

What separates Blood on the Moon... is the depth and breadth of Steers' research.

Morgantown Messenger

Ought to find a place on most scholar' shelves.

Columbia (SC) State

With research and deductive reasoning that is persuasive, Steers proves that Mrs. Surratt's tavern in Maryland and boarding house in DC were both safe houses for Confederate agents.

Easton (MD) Star-Democrat

Steers has written a detailed, scholarly account based on original sources as well as newly discovered evidence concerning the assassination.

Virginia Quarterly Review

In his readable, exceedingly well-researched account of the assassination, Edward Steers shreds the myths that have encrusted the story of Booth's plot and that reveal more about what some Americans want to believe that what actually happened.

Maryland Historical Magazine

Engagingly written, lively in style, and balanced in analysis, this book will take its place upon the short list of the finest studies of the Lincoln assassination.

Journal of Illinois History

Presents a tale that needs to be told—the real story behind the assassination of the 16th president.

Kentucky Monthly

A carefully documented account of the conspiracy and those who took part in it.

The Lancet

Respected Lincoln scholar Dr. Edward Steers has here brought his research talents to bear on the assassination. It is refreshing to read that John Wilkes Booth was not a madman and that Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was not an innocent country physician as depicted in current Mudd family propaganda.

James O. Hall

Punctures the myths and misrepresentations that have so long been part of the history.

Political Bandwagon

The most complete summary to date of the facts surrounding Lincoln's demise.

Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star

Steers manages to make an often-told tale come alive and seem fresh in the re-telling.... There is a very small shelf of books that are absolutely essential to the understanding of Lincoln's murder and this is one of them.

H-Net Reviews

This should be the end-all of Lincoln assassination books.

Louisville Courier-Journal

Steers has written a careful synthesis of what is known about Lincoln's murder.

New York Review of Books

Colorful, well written, and marches along smartly, despite all the twists of the trail leading to and from Ford's Theatre.

Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

Few attempts at telling a comprehensive story of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln succeed so well in that comprehensiveness as Blood on the Moon.

Allan C. Guelzo

Offers a highly useful narrative of the Lincoln murder conspiracy, complete with provocative opinions and extensive documentation.

Civil War Book Review

An essential part of a Lincoln library. Besides being the definitive work on the depressing events of April 1865, it is a unique source for refuting the misinformation, myths and lies that have grown up around them.

America's Civil War Magazine

If you are going to read only one book on the Lincoln assassination, this is the one!

author of Battle Cry of Freedom James M. McPherson

A worthy book.

Washington Post Book World

The quality of research and the skillful presentation of the story of Lincoln's assassination will lead you well beyond the superficial facts that we've all been taught and into the depths of the conspiracy and the aftermath of John Wilkes Booth's world-shattering deed at Ford's Theater.

Lexington Herald-Leader

Immediately takes its place as the standard by which all other books dealing with Lincoln's assassination will be judged: it is must reading for anyone interested in the Civil War or American history.

Blue & Gray Magazine

An exceptionally well-written and thorough book on the assassination. For anyone who is sincerely interested in the assassination, this book is a 'must read.'

Historian

Immerse yourself in this required book for anyone interested in Lincoln, presidential assassinations or the American Civil War.

The Waterline - Cmdr. Youssef Abou-Enein

What Steers has done is go back to trial testimony and eyewitness memoirs, not only to reconstruct events but to lay motives bare.

Baltimore Sun

A book that will entertain and educate readers interested in this integral part of American history.

Louisville Voice-Tribune

Steers has become the pre-eminent researcher on the [Lincoln] assassination.

Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Assocation

This is the book to which all Lincoln and Civil War aficionados—indeed, all Americans interested in their history—should turn for a lucid and up-to-date explanation of the assassination.

William Hanchett

An excellent overall view of the deed [Lincoln's assassination].

Choice

Reveals the extensive organization element of the Confederate secret service in southern Maryland, and its involvement with Booth from the earliest stages of the plot right up to his death.

North & South

May become the definitive volume detailing the events surrounding the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

Union County (KY) Advocate

Steers has studied the Lincoln assassination intensively and had accumulated a formidable database.

Washington Times

Awarded an honorable mention for the 2002 Seaborg Civil War Prize competition.

From the Publisher

Fascinating.... The best account we have of the fateful event that did so much to change the course of American history.

Bowling Green Daily News

Anyone interested in the fateful events of April 14, 1865, and the possible role in the conspiracy involving members of the Confederate government which has not been given the exposure it deserves, must read this book.

Back Channels

"Hurrah! Old Abe Lincoln has been assassinated!" wrote a South Carolina girl in her diary in 1865, giving palpable voice to the intense anti-Lincoln sentiments of the slaveholders and the South in general. This well-argued, often exciting account of an organized Confederate plot behind John Wilkes Booth's murder of the president both finely synthesizes traditional Lincoln assassination scholarship and proposes new proof and twists on already acknowledged possibilities. Steers, an avocational historian who has written several other books on Lincoln and the assassination, has a sharp ear for historical discordance and a novelist's eye for illuminating detail. Carefully filling in background (from Booth's relationship to theater and politics to the fascinating, complicated trial of co-conspirator Mary Surratt) for the nonspecialized reader, Steers gracefully disentangles a clutter of characters, historical details and hypotheses to prove his own conspiracy theory. Much of this material will be new to the common reader a Confederate plot to use yellow fever as a form of biological warfare against the North; the flight to the Vatican of Mary Surratt's son in an effort to escape prosecution after the assassination but Steers never loses his firm grip on his exciting primary narrative. Although he inclines toward purple prose in his more dramatic moments ("The deed was done. The tyrant was killed. Abraham Lincoln could burn in hell. Sic semper tyrannis!"), his theory is forthrightly and convincingly presented. Less a book for professional historians than U.S. history buffs and Lincoln diehards, this engaging expos? makes for provocative reading. 50 b&w illus. (Nov.) Copyright 2001 CahnersBusiness Information.

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