Customer Reviews

American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies

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This is a wonderful gripping page-turning biography with an assassination of a President at its core. Mr. Kauffman has written history in the style of a novel without sacrificing accuracy or stretching the boundaries of probabilities.

This is the best single description that I have ever read of the night that Lincoln was murdered, at the moment of his greatest glory with the Civil War winding down with the surrender of General Lee earlier in the week. Most of the previous assassination/conspiracies accounts have centered upon Lincoln, with John Wilkes Booth as the mysterious off-stage actor. Mr. Kauffman has written for this generation the definitive story of how Lincoln came to die, with this prominent actor pulling the various strings to accomplish his goal.

"American Brutus" has all the usual suspects (Mary Surrat, Dr. Mudd, David Herold, et al) being manipulated in the elaborate web that Wilkes has weaved for the Confederate cause. One comes away with a sense of what it was like to live in the Washington D.C. region during the Civil War. Current residents (and future visitors) of that region will especially enjoy this book (with its maps) and be able to re-trace Wilkes' escape route, tour Ford's Theater and see the locations where the plotting occurred.

Mr Kauffman had performed exhaustive research without cramming all of it down the throat of the reader. This is a book that a non-reader of history will enjoy and a likely nominee for next year's Pulitzer's Prize for history.

Every once in awhile a biography or history book is labeled the "definitive" work on a subject. Surely that term must be applied to Michael Kauffman's work on John Wilkes Booth and the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. When it comes to this type of book too much is infinitely better than not enough. So the fact that Kauffman spares no details about Booth, his actions leading up to and following the assassination and his fellow conspirators amounts to a small quibble with this impressive work. True, the more causal reader will often feel overwhelmed with information but Kauffman is a skilled story teller and that is what at essence "American Brutus" is, a ripping good story about one of the key points and great tragedies of our nation's history.
Kauffman completely acquaints the reader with Booth, his family and friends and what emerges is a fully realized portrait never tainted by the writer's one judgments. Kauffman allows the man's words and actions to speak for himself. His portrait of Booth is neither sympathetic (we wouldn't hear of it) nor harsh (we don't need it). The author has so immersed himself in the subject matter that he is able to brilliantly recreate the times and places surrounding Booth and the assassination. Particularly impressive is his portrait of our nation's capital some 140 years ago. From the White House, to Ford's Theater to all stops in between, the reader is transported.
For those of us who've made a life long study of American history including the Civil War, Lincoln and the consequences of Lincoln's premature death, "American Brutus" is an important contribution to our understanding of these times and events. For those less versed in our history this is a wonderful contribution.
The book includes important appendices and a richly detailed notes section.

AMERICAN BRUTUS starts with the assassination of Lincoln. Kauffman quotes just about everybody who was at Ford's theater when it happened: audience members, stage hands, actors etc. Then he moves to the initial investigations and the several law enforcement officers and detectives who were on the trail of the killers. It's hard to keep everybody straight.

Not until Chapter Five do we get a glimpse of Booth's background. His father was also an actor and seemed to get along well with the "rented" slaves he kept. Junius Booth Sr. had no problem with negroes eating at the same table. Kauffman suggests that military school may have had something to do with Booth's attitude toward blacks.

Kauffman hypothesizes that Booth saw himself as a Brutus character. According to Booth, Lincoln was a tyrant, like Julius Caesar, who had trampled on the Constitution. In the picture section, we see John Wilkes acting with his brothers in Julius Caesar, although he played Mark Antony to Edwin's Brutus. Kauffman says John Wilkes played many such characters throughout his career.

There are several other illuminating hypotheses in AMERICAN BRUTUS. One would be that Booth tried to implicate anyone he talked to about the plot, plus several other innocent bystanders. He shows how Dr. Mudd was "set up" by Booth and Surratt. He also shows how Booth tried to do this with Vice President Johnson by leaving him a note prior to the assassination.

Kauffman also works hard at exploding several misconceptions about the assassination. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton is shown taking charge after Lincoln was shot. Far from hating Lincoln, he was genuinely fond of the president. Also, John Wilkes Booth did not break his leg when he jumped from Lincoln's box. Kauffman shows that this notion came from the journal Booth kept during his flight, which was packed with other deliberate fabrications. Most surprising for me, I guess, was Kauffman's portrayal of Lewis Thornton Powell. The myth has it that Powell was insane, but Kauffman shows that Powell's lawyer used an insanity defense during the trail, which may have given historians a wrong idea; Powell was a member of Mosby's Rangers prior to the assassination and faced death bravely.

The trial segment was kind of dull. Eight people were tried by a military tribunal, including a woman. The prosecution did not have to furnish all of the evidence it found to the various defense attorneys. Some of the testimony was faked. Yet, four of the defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment and were eventually pardoned by President Johnson as he left office.

For me, the Coda was the most interesting part of the book as the reader gets to find out what happened to all of the principals later on in life. Henry Rathbone, for instance, who accompanied Lincoln and his wife to the play, never fully recovered from his stabbing and eventually murdered his wife.

Tons of footnotes with occasional commentary within. I'm still reading them.

This history has three things going for it: first,Kauffman gives just enough detail---unlike some histories that overwhelm the reader with names and dates and mind numbing detail, Kauffman stays with the main characters(for the most part) and lets them emerge as distinct and full bodied people---Booth,vain but with an actor's gift of persuasion; Stanton,hard as nails but who loved(not too strong a word) Lincoln; the various members of the plot, all sinister but with different agendas. Second, he deftly talks about how Lincoln went from the most hated man in 1860 America to the most beloved. Finally(and here is where the book excels)he describes how Booth came to realize that his act made Lincoln a saint,and vivdly portrays Booth's death which was as painful and drawn out as the President's. For lovers of trivia the Coda lets you know what happened to all the main characters.

Hundreds imprisoned in American jails with no expectation of probable cause, including a third of the Maryland state legislature. Prisoners shrouded in hoods. Citizens having to sign "loyalty statements" before they vote. Some kind of scenario dreamt up for a modern movie mimicking the current US regime? Nope. It's a description of the wartime policies of the first Republican administration, Abraham Lincoln's. And according to Michael W. Kauffman's brilliantly lain out narrative of Lincoln's assasination and its aftermath, the tension these policies led to in Maryland, especially, was quite palpable.

Since Maryland was a border state....Union, but Southern by culture and values (some in Maryland had slaves), many had mixed feelings about the war and about any support for the Union cause. Enter John Booth, son of famous stage actor Junius Brutus Booth, and soon to become an even greater star. John Booth seethed with anger throughout the war, even as he built his acting career, until he began to hatch the plot that took place at Ford's theater on the night of April 14, 1865. Part of what motivated him, however, was the praise and cheers he thought he'd get from over the country after his deed was done. And much of his story plays out as a twisted version of Shakespeare's "Julius Ceasar" (one in which John and his brothers had often starred), where the assasin Brutus, instead of being honored as in the play, is hunted down, injured, and finally killed as he hides in a burning barn.

Though we may know the "facts" of the story from junior high school history (Ford's theater, "Our American Cousin", "Sic semper tyranis!",), here is a book that not only fleshes out that terrible night, but takes us into the investigation much like Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" did for the Cutter murders of the 1950s. Plunging into Booth's history through the use of eyewitness accounts, letters, archives, and a good knack for putting two and two together, Kauffman shows how some earlier accounts missed or inadvertantly added things to the story (a good example is the alleged guilt of Dr. Mudd, the doctor who treated Booth's broken leg after the fall from the President's box to the stage).

This is great historical reading. It reads easily, brings out information not yet considered, and provides good analysis of that information, both from a psychological and historical viewpoint. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would very much recommend it.

A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of attending the John Wilkes Booth Escape Route tour sponsored by the Surratt Society (...). Mr. Kauffman was the tour guide and I enjoyed the tour greatly. So I looked forward to this book.

Mr. Kauffman has done what other historians have not: he went back to the eye-witness accounts taken on that night and the following days. In other words, he used information that has not been polluted by the exaggeration and imagination of the human memory. For example, immediate eye-witness accounts at Ford's Theater dispell the oft-quoted "fact" that that Booth broke his leg when he jumped from the balcony to the stage.

But this book does not address Booth's escape only. Mr. Kauffman includes additional information about the times. The contemporary reader will be interested in the parallels between 1860-1865 USA and the current status of the USA: a politically polarized nation, criminal profiling (a US Congressman was detained at a train station because he looked somewhat like Booth), sketchy homeland security (the bridges out of DC were like sieves allowing Booth and Herold to escape), a massive military search for the assassins, joyous celebrations in foreign countries and anti-American sentiment following an American tragedy, etc.

Mr. Kauffman's Booth is a consummate villian who carefully and thoughtfully plotted the Lincoln Assassination and who skillfully manipulated numerous people, thus entangling them into his web. His book gives the reader a good idea of the times and shows us that after 130 years, nothing much has really changed.

Wonderful book. Well researched. Well presented.

First of all let me say I don't get to read often, as I usually don't have the time. However, I started to read this book and could not put it down. It holds you from the very beginning, the setting is Fords Theater and you are in the audience. The scene is perfectly described; as if you are actually there, noting who is sitting next to you and who can be seen in the balcony. The book then takes you back, after the chaotic night of the assassination, into Booth's boyhood and earlier life, bringing you right back up to the night of April 14th 1865.

The chase of Booth continues the story and then of course his death and trial of the conspirators. Previous reviews state the book slows during the trial; however I found it to be very interesting. Kauffman goes to great length to explain the law of the time and how different it is than that of today, including arguments over the years about the governments' handlings of the trail.

To me, this book truly reads like a movie, making it easy to picture the story as it unfolds and if you imagine Johnny Depp (a handsome and well loved actor) in the part of John Wilkes Booth one can easily see why this would translate well onto the big screen. Kaufman describes things that are happening, through all the ciaos the night of the assassination to each individual meeting Booth had with his conspirators, with great detail.

History does not paint a pretty picture of Booth, however I believe this book helps to tell the real story of a man who thought he was doing a justice for his country (the South) and not just the normal story your taught in school about a crazy man that shot Lincoln.

Michael Kaufman has devoted much of his adult life to researching the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the circumstances surrounding that trafic event. AMERICAN BRUTUS is a culmination of that work. The book is extremely well written and easy to read. Having a legal background I was particularly interested in the way that Kaufman handled the trials of the accused. He did an excellent job so that lawyers and non lawyers alike will understand the mechanics of the proceedings.

Don't overlook the voluminous footnotes that Kaufman has included.

This is an excellent book for beginners and Lincoln assissination buffs alike.

I certainly am not a Lincoln-Booth scholar, but I must admit that I am fascinated by this account. I cannot help but feel that Booth, being the master manipulator that he was,
had planned assassination and NOT kidnapping from the beginning. As he is described here he is obsessed with the treatment he felt the South was getting, and I can't believe he planned only to kidnap Mr. Lincoln in return for southern prisoners. He managed to persuade others around him of his intention to kidnap only to obtain their help, and also to bring them into suspicion in the event of his capture, which he did. The trial and resultant punishment of the guilty parties only reminds me of the reaction we experienced following 9/11 which resulted in the Patriot Act. (So times have probably not changed that much). To bring to trial and to punish the guilty, giving them the death penalty to be carried out within two days of the decision, and all the other details within a month or two seems to be unbelievable and obviously was the result of panic and the seeking of some sort of revenge. Mr. Kaufmann raised many questions still unanswered, but he gave us a fascinating reading by any means.

Michael W. Kauffman has made a major contribution with "American Brutus," a page-turner borne of 30 years of research. The main current of this detailed volume reveals Booth as cunning, manipulative, and far more adroit than many have imagined in luring associates to do his bidding, or in implicating others in his schemes. "American Brutus" is significant also for its many previously unpublished photos and documents. Moreover, the voluminous endnotes are intriguing and invite careful and fascinating reading, time and again.

Throughout this important book, Kauffman's interpretations suggest unhurried analyses, offering many occasions to pause and reflect. Even when his assertions deviate from accepted versions of events, the reasoning is compelling.

For example, a widely held belief is that Booth broke his leg in jumping from Lincoln's box, a view Booth himself encouraged in his self-aggrandizing diary entry. But this is difficult to square with contemporary accounts by startled eyewitnesses (e.g., "We Saw Lincoln Shot," by Timothy S. Good) who described the assassin as dashing athletically across the stage. Orthopedists and physiologists can argue what feats are possible during an adrenaline rush, but one wonders how a man can sprint the stage then mount a horse with his broken left leg without any signs of impairment. Kauffman offers an alternative and entirely believable version of when Booth actually broke his leg.

Mr. Kauffman reinforces the position of Edward Steers ("Blood On The Moon") that the conspirators' fate should be viewed in light of 19th century -- not present -- law. While Mrs. Surratt might not be executed today, nor perhaps would Spangler, O'Laughlen, or Arnold et al receive such lengthy sentences, their judgments followed precedent for that period.

Like a previous reviewer, I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Kauffman in September 2001 (just before the attacks) durng the Booth Escape Route Tour. Throughout the tour and over lunch, it became evident Mr. Kauffman is a font of knowledge concerning the Lincoln tragedy and aftermath, and I wondered why he had not contributed a significant work. "American Brutus" answers this question in spectacular fashion indeed. Hail Kauffman -- and seize "American Brutus."