The Trial: The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators

On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln as part of a scheme intended to destabilize the federal government and aid the Confederacy. The plan failed. By April 26, Booth was killed resisting capture, and eight of the nine conspirators eventually charged in the assassination were in custody. President Andrew Johnson's executive order on May 1 directed that those charged with Lincoln's murder stand trial before a military tribunal. The trial lasted over fifty days, with 366 witnesses testifying. Benn Pitman, an expert in phonography (an early form of shorthand), was contracted to transcribe the testimony. He produced an edited collection that condensed 4,300 pages of transcription into one accessible volume, organizing testimony by defendant and adding summaries and indexing. This book guides readers through all 421 pages of Pitman's testimony record, with commentary from assassination scholars. It presents the evidence that led to the conspirators' convictions and documents one of the most famous and controversial trials in US history.