TOW #25 IRB Post

 Reading goal: IRB
Writing goal: connect to thesis

   April 15th, 1865 was a fateful day in America. Famous actor John Wilkes Booth shot and killed beloved president Abraham Lincoln, just as the Civil War was coming to a close. This single gunshot had far wider ramifications than the death of one man. In fact, the entire politics of Reconstruction were changed by the absence of Lincoln's strong leadership. How on earth did Booth manage to assassinate the most important man in America? James L. Swanson explains exactly how in his book Manhunt. In Manhunt, Swanson integrates primary sources accounts to inform people how Booth planned and succeeded in killing president Lincoln.
     Swanson integrates a wide variety of primary source documents into his book, like diary entries and letters to give a very accurate representation of the thoughts and feelings of the people surrounding Booth and Lincoln at the time of the assassination. For example, Swanson includes a letter from Booth to his mother, as well as a recalled snippet of dialogue with a friends, found in the friend's journal. Booth expressed a desire to both of them that he had a strong hatred for Lincoln, who had dismantled the Confederacy of which Booth was so fond of. (7, 37). He even said to his friend that he had the opportunity to kill Lincoln at his inauguration: "What a great opportunity I had, if I had wished, to kill the President." With quotes and primary sources, the audience to able to discern exactly what Booth was feeling, since they are his own words. The same goes for the dozens of other people quoted in the book who viewed the assassination first hand. These sources increase the accuracy of the book and also the audiences understanding.
     Swanson, of course, was not at Forbe's Theatre in 1865. He did not witness Lincoln getting shot, or Booth running away, yet he is able to write as if he did. Since Swanson incorporates so many primary sources, it seems like he has the knowledge as some one who was there, and makes the reader feel like they were too. Through his book, Swanson keeps the memory of this event alive.