Summary Of Chasing Lincoln's Killer By James L. Swanson

The book I read was “Chasing Lincoln’s killer” by James L. Swanson. This book is about the events that took place before, during, and after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. I enjoyed this book, because it was very informative, as well as fun to read. I also like how there were pictures to help explain the events. This book took place in Washington DC and Canada.
The first part of the book was the planning of the assassination. John Wilkes Booth formed a group of people that would together assassinate the president, as well as the Secretary of State. At first, they were just planning on kidnapping the president, but later, Booth decided it would be better to assassinate him. Booth was the leader of the group, the others included

Powell stabbed Robinson twice in the shoulder. He shoved Robinson aside and kept fighting Augustus, instead of stabbing him, he just punched him and ran down the steps out into the street. He saw David Herold was no longer holding the horses and only Powell’s horse was there. He threw his knife, got on his horse, and calmly trotted away. Powell didn’t succeed at assassinating William H. Seward.
That same night, George Atzerodt was assigned to murder Vice President Johnson. Johnson was staying at a hotel nearby, it would be a very easy task to accomplish. Atzerodt could simply knock on the door and either stab him, or shoot him. He would easily die, unprotected and Atzerodt could easily escape. Like Powell, Atzerodt was armed with a knife and a pistol. The night the assassination was to take place, Atzerodt decided he couldn’t do it. He sat at the hotel bar and drank. The more he drank, the worse the idea sounded. Atzerodt abandoned his job and

Booth was focused on getting away as fast as possible. Booth and Herold headed to Dr. Samuel A. Mudd’s house. Booth was unable to walk because of his injured leg, so Herold went to knock on Mudd’s door. Mudd recognized Herold, Mudd was okay with helping kidnap the President, he was however not okay with being a part of the assassination. Mudd however did decided to let Booth and Herold in. He identified that Booth’s leg was broken and he wrapped it to help it heal. The next morning Mudd sent Booth and Herold to the woods, he did bring them food, water, and the news so they knew what was going on.
A couple days later, Booth and Herold set off for Canada. It was a long journey filled with some faults, including when they went on the boat, they sailed in the wrong direction, so their trip took longer than expected. With some stops along the way, they made it to the Garrett Farm in Canada on April 23. When John Garrett was out running errands, he saw that they were offering a $140,000 reward for finding John WIlkes Booth. He didn’t know if he would turn the men in. He put the two men out in the barn that night and without them knowing, he locked them