12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent social history of 19th century America and Europe, October 24, 2008
This review is from: The Last Lincoln Conspirator: John Surratt's Flight from the Gallows (Hardcover)
The fateful seconds of a football game are many times determined by the momentum of numerous previous plays. Of course, during ESPN Sportscenter, you only see the scoring plays without the background material. Andrew Jampoler ensures that you get most of the requisite background material to understand the world situation that enabled the escape of John Surratt, "The Last Lincoln Conpirator."
The book opens with eight of the nine Lincoln Conspirators in Federal custody awaiting their court date. Amidst the abundant background material, we learn of the trial and execution of four of the criminals, and life sentences in the Dry Tortugas for the remaining four. Jampoler describes the final hours of the condemned, and finishes the chapter with an analysis of the death penalty in 19th century America.
Surratt was in Elmira, New York on the date of the assassination on a spy mission for the confederacy. As news of the assassination broke across the United States, Surratt knew he was a wanted man. He quickly made the decision to flee the United States and try his luck elsewhere. Along with descriptions of the communities across Canada, England, Italy and the Vatican that were sympathetic to the Confederate cause, Jampoler traces the movements of Surratt through these countries. In many instances, there was no primary source material for Jampoler to draw from, so he uses alternate sources to describe what the times and environment would have been like for Surratt.
With the chapter of the trial, Jampoler finally hits his stride with an excellent summary of the 19th Century justice system in America, with John Surratt as the case study. A disbarment of one of the key lawyers; a mistrial; and a surprise verdict - this case had more twists than a good mystery novel.
Jampoler finishes the book with a post-punishment biography of the remaining 30+ years of Surratt's life in Baltimore, where he married and became a successful businessman.
At the end of 275 pages, I know Surratt was accused of participating in the Lincoln and Seward kidnapping and assassination conspiracies, but John Surratt's exact contributions to the cabal are still unclear. This is not a criticism of Jampoler, but of the lack of substance in the Federal case against John Surratt, Jr. Along with the shipboard boasting to fellow shipmates that served as his "confession", the case was marred by a lack of physical evidence, manufactured witnesses, and suppressed exculpatory evidence. Jampoler does do an excellent job describing the trial against Surratt.
There are a few things that keeps Jampoler's book from being a great book. Jampoler's meandering writing style makes it sometimes challenging to follow the storyline. The book lacks any description of the actual plotting leading up to multiple Lincoln and Seward assassination and kidnapping plots the criminals stood accused of. In spite of the book's description stating much has been written on the subject, it would have been beneficial for readers like me who are new to the subject. I also thought think the failure to discuss the initial investigation that led the Federal agents to the Surratt boarding house to be a serious omission. The book does an outstanding job of documenting the chase through Europe, but there was very little about how John Surratt initially became the most wanted man in America.
If you are looking for a story on crime and punishment, this book will leave you wanting for more. The book does an adequate job of documenting the flight and trial of John Surratt, Jr. It's real strength is in its excellent description of the Southern sympathies in both the social and political history of 19th Century America and Europe.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Surratt's Flight a Disappointment, December 30, 2008
This review is from: The Last Lincoln Conspirator: John Surratt's Flight from the Gallows (Hardcover)
As a long time student of the Lincoln Assassination, I was very glad to see this study of John Surratt's escape and trial. There is a lot of good information here, but on the whole, the book is a disappointment. Jampoler writes with something of a haughty style. He never uses one word if three or four can be found and at times it seemed like he was just fleshing out the manuscript to make it long enough to publish. An annoying habit is referring to a person by who they are related to, rather than by their name. At one point, John Surratt is termed "Anna's youngest brother." Mary Surratt is once called "Issac and John Surratt's mother." Also, in the note on page 37, Jampoler takes a swipe at actor Charlton Heston for no apparent reason. He goes into great detail explaining how to hang a person, and even refers to the lynching scene in the 1943 movie "The Ox-Bow Incident." Jampoler provides long histories of the ships that Surratt sailed on, and also gives detailed biographies of the captains of those ships. This breaks up the narration of Surratt's escape and indicates Jampoler's tendency to flit from subject to subject. On page 26, the first two full paragraphs discuss Booth's charisma, the third paragraph mentions his escape plans, which include going to Mexico. The following paragraphs are a long description of the political situation in Mexico and a discussion of Emperor Maximilian. Later, Jampoler feels the need to provide a very long sequence giving the details of Jefferson Davis' flight from Richmond and his capture by Union troops. The narration of Surratt's trial is very detailed and was obviously expertly researched by Jampoler. However, a criticism is that he does not mention Honora Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick was a boarder at the Surratt house and was an important government witness at the murder trial in 1865 and John Surratt's trial two years later. In March 1865, she had witnessed a meeting at Ford's Theatre between Booth, Surratt, and Powell/Paine. However, Fitzpatrick does not even rate one mention by Jampoler. The best part of the book is the last, which talks about Surratt's later life. It is very well researched and gives details which have long been overlooked by other historians. All in all, Jampoler obviously did a huge amount of research, but he would have done better to stay on his subject and not dawdle on side issues and personalities. This book should only be purchased by serious students of the Lincoln Assassination. Readers with only a casual interest will be confused as there is very little background on the primary Lincoln conspirators and virtually no discussion of the plotting or the actual assassination. I would recommend the book only to people who want to add to their library of books on this subject.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tracking Surratt, November 12, 2008
This review is from: The Last Lincoln Conspirator: John Surratt's Flight from the Gallows (Hardcover)
A most interesting book on the escape, then criminal justice activity involving John Surratt, a son of the first woman executed by the federal government and himself charged with being in on the conspiracy to murder President Lincoln.
Andrew Jampoler writes with wry humor and from a deep fountain of knowledge as he takes the reader along on a brisk tale with many side journeys into interesting bits of historical and cultural information. You learn, among many things, about the Zouves, ship traffic over the Atlantic, the criminal justice system of late 1860s America, and the fate of many of the minor players (witnesses, prosecutors, defenders, etc.) involved in the attempt to wrap up of a crime that shook our nation. This is a volume where one profits by reading the footnotes.
This book does not claim to be a full history of the conspiracy, let alone of John Wilkes Booth. It does help for a reader to have some prior understanding of the events leading to Ford's Theatre. But if you want to know, as I did, how John Surratt ran, was caught, then beat the charge--read this book.
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