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Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln

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Come Retribution is opaque, at times difficult but a wonderfully fresh look at the official role of the CONfederate government in the assasination of Abraham Lincoln. Unlike most works on the Civil War, it is not a re-comilation but a new look at an old subject using new evidence. And the evidence is damning -- the authors, all modern day intelligence experts, argue convincingly that the death of President Lincoln was a runaway operation that was designed to kidnap the president and/or blow up the War department. The authors ability to uncover fresh evidence at so late a date is an indication that modern research and analytical techniques used by the intelligence community have a strong and valuable role in historical reseacrh as well. This book is an absolute must read for anyone interested in the assasination of Lincoln, the Confederate Secret Service or historical detective work. MichShul@aol.com

"Come Retribution" is a lengthy and often technically detailed effort to place the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln into the context of Confederate Secret Service operations during the Civil War. The first half of the book lays the ground work by an extended discussion of Confederate intelligence and covert action activities. This discussion highlights the difficulties of reconstructing activities that were highly secret and poorly documented, especially in the chaos of the closing months of the Civil War. The second half of the book is the application of what is known about the Confederate secret service to the events around Lincoln's assassination. What emerges is a more richly nuanced explanation of those events, in which an extended effort to orchestrate Lincoln's kidnapping becomes an assassination plot after the fall of Richmond in April 1865. The gaps in the record, based both on the passage of time and the secrecy in which these actions would have been carried out means the authors must often imply or suggest links in their explanation based on their characterization of the assassination as an organized secret service mission. The motley band of misfits led by an allegedly insane actor found in traditional histories are in this version replaced by a purpose built organization recruited, financed, and directed to some significant degree by the Confederate Secret Service. The authors' explanation is reasonable and plausible, if not fully documented. The writing in this book is sometimes tedious and repetitive, and will be of most interest to serious students of the Civil War and especially of Lincoln's assassination. This book will be of particular interest to those with a background in intelligence or special operations; indeed, a full understanding of the book almost presupposes such a background. Those who choose to favor exotic conspiracy theories about the Lincoln assassination will be disappointed; Tidwell and his fellow authors prefer simpler explanations.

Although many people today have assumed that Booth acted to kill President Lincoln, Seward and Johnson as an act independent of Confederate complicity, the authors of 'Retribution' document that Booth was well connected with the Confederate special operations unit and agents. The complicated Confederate special operations provided agents not only in Washington D.C. and Maryland but also NYC, Canada and other keys areas inside Union lines. After describing in detail the clandestine activities of the Confederates, the authors outline how the network of agents were implanted that were active in gaining and transferring information but also prepared to support Booth and his companions in the kidnapping of Lincoln aiding his transport through Maryland all the way to Ashland, Virginia and beyond. Unfortunately, definitive proof of the Confederate secret operations may not be explicitly connected to Lincoln's death, it is apparent that Booth was active with operatives in NYC, Canada and agents in eastern Maryland, the flight of his escape. When Booth determined to assassinate Lincoln, there is no conclusive evidence that Confederate authorities approved of his action; however, as the authors point out, the approved element of kidnapping risks death of the object of that kidnapping. In that sense authorities knew with the initial kidnapping plan, that the possibility of Lincoln being killed was a risk does indicate complicity in the possibility of his death. This is a very detailed and well documented book that demonstrates that the Confederate special operations were very active whether in germ warfare with a failed effort to contaminate NYC with yellow fever or to contribute to anti-war sentiment particularly in NYC or even to free Confederate prisoners in the Great Lakes, it is very apparent that Confederate agents were willing to use extraordinary measures to end the war. It's amazing that Lincoln was so vulnerable to being kidnapped or assassination and that he was virtually unafraid, leaving it all to fate as he often rode off alone and refused protection unless coerced upon him. It is ironic that perhaps an unwritten code not to assassinate Lincoln protected him when he was vulnerable during most of the war and just a reasonable complement of bodyguards in the end would have saved his life. While Stanton somberly stated, "Now he belongs to the ages," upon Lincoln's death, it appears that Lincoln trusted a higher authority in protecting his life or in determining his time. How good is this book? The author of one of the most recent and acclaimed books on the Lincoln assassination, "Blood on the Moon" frequently references "Come Retribution" calling it a great scholarly history on the Confederate spy and special operations network and its activities.

While not as readable as a novel or even a narrative history, this book is fascinating reading for anyone interested in the subject of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. While everybody and his brother has been accused of killing John F. Kennedy, few have questioned the "lone gunman" theory that John Wilkes Booth was a madman who acted on his own. Some years back there was an inept attempt to blame a conspiracy involving Union secretary of war Edwin Stanton, but no one seems to have thought to explore the obvious possibility of Confederate involvement--at least not since Stanton himself gave up trying to pin it on Jeff Davis shortly after the event. Now this book presents a sizable body of circumstantial evidence to show that, at the very least, the assassination was a last-minute perversion of a Confederate plot to capture Lincoln and thus bargain for its independence, or at least for its soldiers in Federal prisoner of war camps. The book is well written, and the thesis it presents is convincing. No one who has not read this book really understands the end of the American Civil War

I read all the reviews on this book, and was really looking forward to reading it. With all due respect to the author, the book is hardly referenced, speculative, and relies on highly circumstantial evidence in support of its thesis: namely, that Lincoln was the victim of a Confederate plot. Also, the writing style is dull and unimaginative, hardly provoking much desire to turn the next page.