|
When my son was
six years old, his class went on their first field trip to
downtown Washington. When I picked him up that night, he
excitedly ran into my arms and said, "We went into Ford's
Theatre--Lincoln was shot there when he was watching a movie--and
my teacher even knows who did it!"
I thought I knew
who did it, too, until I read Blood on the Moon.
Dr. Steers explains
in the Preface why he was motivated to write the book. Of
the thousands dealing with the assassination, the vast majority
of books are by non-academics who used secondary or tertiary
sources to support their assassination theories. These theories
include the view that Booth operated alone; that Booth wasn't
even there; that Jefferson Davis planned and approved it;
that Mary Surratt was innocent; that Dr. Samuel Mudd was
just a kindly country doctor; and, that Booth escaped from
the burning barn and lived into old age selling real estate
in south Texas.
Dr. Steers was
not originally an academic historian either, but a research
scientist at the National Institutes of Health. He puts that
training to good use by scientifically evaluating the records.
Then, he uses those scientific results to factually establish
which Lincoln assassination research of the past has merit
and which does not. He culls from this every possible assassination
scenario and arrives at the only answer, not just to the
question, "Who did it?" but also, "Who was responsible for
it?"
Steers begins with
a modern day visit to Ford's Theatre, combining the National
Park Service ranger's talk and his own observations to tell
us what is real and what isn't. As an operational theater,
Ford's is decorated for that evening's play, and not as Laura
Keene or Abraham and Mary Lincoln last saw it. That's not
real. But, the feeling we get from reading the ranger's excited
description of events, as Steers relates it, makes us feel
we're in Ford's Theatre that night, with the gaslights turned
low. The box is also redone to represent how it appeared
that evening. Is the Lincoln rocking chair real? No, the
real one is on exhibit in Detroit. Ford's has just a reproduction.
But, we know the box itself, the box where the Lincolns sat,
is real. And the door leading to the box is real. The door
with the hole cut out, the hole that Booth used to gain entry,
shoot Lincoln, stab Major Rathbone, then jump to the stage
and escape into the night. That's real. But we still don't
know who did it.
Steers ends by
unraveling the complex story. The true story. The factual
story of what led up to these events. The events that congealed
on April 14, 1865 to place John Wilkes Booth behind that
door with the hole carved out, with the other people who
were, metaphorically, standing beside him. Many historians,
professional or not, have tried to tell this story. But it
took Steers' meticulous approach to convince us. He tells
the real story of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It's
compelling, it's exciting, and it's real. Now we all know
who did it.
|
|
