A Threat to the Republic

The American Civil War did not end at Appomattox Court House Virginia. The surrender of General Robert E. Lee's army simply transferred the fighting from the military battlefields back into the political arena. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln was the first blow delivered in this new phase of the war. On the night of April 14, 1865, there was no doubt in the mind of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton that the assassins who attacked President Lincoln and Secretary Seward were sent by the leaders of the Confederacy. As Stanton began to piece together the size and scope of the attack his investigation turned up a disturbing bit of evidence that forced him to narrow his focus solely upon the capture, conviction and execution of John Wilkes Booth and anyone else who had knowledge of this critical information. This information was so dangerous that he privately deemed it a "threat to the republic." The Confederacy was destroyed, but with Lincoln's murder the Union was in grave danger of descending into anarchy. Stanton knew there were still thousands of armed Confederate troops in the field and that Jefferson Davis was on the run advocating guerilla warfare. The decisive decisions made by the Secretary of War would be critical in preserving the country and the secret he possessed would preserve his position of power. This is the story of how the various kidnapping plots against Abraham Lincoln's distilled into a murderous action by John Wilkes Booth and how the assassination affected the politics of the country. How a political favor became such a closely guarded secret that it lead to the first impeachment of a United States president and shaped the events of our own generation. Jerrod Madonna separates the facts from the mythology that evolved from one of the most dramatic events in American history into one of the most fascinating books on the subject.