Book description
" With commentary by Terry Alford, Burrus Carnahan, Joan L.
Chaconis, Percy Martin, Betty Ownsbey, Edward Steers Jr., Thomas R.
Turner, and Laurie Verge On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth
assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. By April 26, eight of the ten
people eventually charged as accomplices in Lincoln's murder were in
custody. Booth was killed resisting capture and John Surratt was in
Canada, his whereabouts unknown to Federal authorities. In the days that
followed, President Johnson issued an Executive Order directing that the
persons charged with Lincoln's murder stand trial before a military
tribunal. During the fifty-day trial, over three hundred and sixty
witnesses gave testimony. Benn Pitman, a recognized expert in the art of
phonography (an early form of shorthand), was awarded a government
contract to produce a true and accurate transcription of the testimony.
Working with four assistants, Pitman produced transcripts that served
the general public through daily releases to select members of the press
as well as to the prosecution and the defense. Pitman was given the
right to publish the transcriptions for public sale, and he skillfully
winnowed the 4,300 pages of transcription into a single 421-page volume.
Copies of the original 1865 edition, as well as subsequent reprints, are
exceedingly rare. Here for the first time, leading experts in the field
lend their insight in a series of commentaries that complement Pitman's
published transcript-included here in its entirety-exposing various
perjuries, explaining testimony that has escaped scholarly attention,
and clarifying the events surrounding the assassination as never before.
