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by William L. Richter (Author)
One of the most pivotal, shocking, and defining events in American history, the assassination of President Lincoln, remains a constant source of fascination and divisive opinions. In this extensively researched historical novel, the author paints a fuller picture of those convicted of killing the president. John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators are often dismissed as irrational loners. But The Last Confederate Heroes: The Final Struggle for Southern Independence and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln delves deeper into their backgrounds and political philosophies, portraying them as imaginative secret agents who conspire with select members of the Confederate government in a last ditch effort to end the Civil War in 1865 with a Southern victory. Booth and his cohorts' previous schemes to bring down the North had all failed. Frustrated by these defeats, the Rebel retreat from Richmond, and the surrender of Lee's army at Appomattox, Booth reassembles his band with a plot to assassinate Lincoln and his cabinet, one by one, at various points around Washington, DC, on the night of April 14, 1865. Only Booth succeeds. Evading capture, he leads officials on a twelve-day manhunt that ends with his death at the hands of federal soldiers and detectives. His compatriots are arrested, tried, and sentenced to be hanged or jailed, but a carefully engineered Confederate cover-up hinders complete investigation and allows many conspirators to go free. Provocative and compelling, The Last Confederate Heroes follows Booth, Mary Surratt, Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, and others in their efforts to end the Civil War and achieve Southern independence -- only to go down amid the ruins of the Old South and the cause they held so dear.
