|
|
|
  
• Critical
Praise for Manhunt |
PRAISE FOR MANHUNT "Compelling ....A meticulous account of crime and capture makes a distinquished
and worthy addition to the legend Americans can't seem to read enough
about."
"Small wonder that Manhunt has been optioned as a major motion picture.
In this fast-paced, hour-by-hour account of the 12 days following Lincoln's
assassination at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865, Swanson (coauthor,
with Daniel R. Weinberg, of Lincoln's Assassins: Their Trial and Execution)
allows the reader to ride along with the Union cavalry and federal agents
through the streets of the nation's capital and the wilds of Maryland
and Virginia in pursuit of John Wilkes Booth, his coconspirators, and
the host of rebel enablers who constituted a viable Confederate underground
railroad. Swanson's eye for detail and his excellent thumbnail sketches
of the figures involved bring the chronicle alive. There was the simultaneous
assassination attempt on Secretary of State William Seward, and Secretary
of War Stanton's pivotal role in keeping the nation together during the
unrest, stoked by an irresponsible press, following Lincoln's death. Swanson
details the conditions endured by Booth while on the run and the foolish
mistakes committed by him and his pursuers during the long chase until
the last stand at a farm near Port Royal, VA, on April 26. Swanson concludes
with discussions of the trial and execution of the four secondary conspirators,
the subsequent squabbling over reward money, and the unfolding of the
post-assassination lives of the drama's major personalities. Ably researched
and seamlessly written, this engrossing book is recommended for all Civil
War and Lincoln collections-and all libraries." "One of the more kinetic renderings of the Lincoln assassination,
Swanson’s synthesis of the sources is bound to be a cover-to-cover reading
hit with history lovers. The author strategically confines his chronology
to the hours surrounding the crime and the ensuing pursuit of the perpetrators,
contrasting with Michael W. Kauffman’s American Brutus (2004), a biography
containing every iota on Booth. Swanson has Booth and his confederates
disperse from their final conspiratorial meeting, gulping a last whiskey
and proceeding to their dastardly deeds—except for George Atzerodt, who
ran from his assignment to murder Vice-President Andrew Johnson. After
the scenes of Booth’s assault, theatrically calculated to ensure his notoriety
whether he eluded capture or not, Swanson relates how he and accomplice
David Herold bluffed their way out of Washington and linked up with rebel
sympathizers. Artfully arranging Booth’s flight with the frantic federal
dragnet that sought him, Swanson so tensely dramatizes the chase, capture,
and killing of Booth that serious shelf-life (plus a movie version starring
Harrison Ford) awaits his account of the assassination and aftermath."
"It was the most horrific assassination that the nation had ever witnessed.
With verve and no little drama, James Swanson recreates John Wilkes Booth's
murder of Abraham Lincoln and takes the reader into the mind-numbing twists
and turns of the 12 day manhunt that ensued. What a rollicking ride!"
|
"In the early
days of April 1865, with the bloody war to preserve the union finished,
Swanson tells us, Abraham Lincoln was "jubilant." Elsewhere in Washington,
the other player in the coming drama of the president's assassination
was miserable. Hearing Lincoln's April 10 victory speech, famed actor
and Confederate die-hard John Wilkes Booth turned to a friend and remarked
with seething hatred, "That means nigger citizenship. Now, by God, I'll
put him through." On April 14, Booth did just that. With great power,
passion and at a thrilling, breakneck pace, Swanson (Lincoln's Assassins:
Their Trial and Execution) conjures up an exhausted yet jubilant nation
ruptured by grief, stunned by tragedy and hell-bent on revenge. For 12
days, assisted by family and some women smitten by his legendary physical
beauty, Booth relied on smarts, stealth and luck to elude the best detectives,
military officers and local police the federal government could muster.
Taking the reader into the action, the story is shot through with breathless,
vivid, even gory detail. With a deft, probing style and no small amount
of swagger, Swanson, a member of the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission,
has crafted pure narrative pleasure, sure to satisfy the casual reader
and Civil War aficionado alike. 11 b&w photos not seen by PW." (Feb.
7)