On the night of April 14, 1865, an actor named John Wilkes Booth quietly worked his way through the halls of Ford’s Theater in Washington D.C. President Abraham Lincoln was enjoying one of the first moments of restful entertainment he had experienced since the Civil War began. Then, shortly after 10 P.M. Wilkes slipped into the unguarded presidential box.
Firing one shot at close range, Wilkes killed the President. A nation went into mourning over the loss of the remarkable man who had reunited a divided country. In the days following Lincoln’s death, his former law partner, William Herndon grieved as he watched thousands of Americans pay their final respects to their fallen leader.
For seventeen years, Herndon sat across from Lincoln in a series of law offices in Springfield, Illinois — one of which still exists across the street from the old state capitol.
But as Herndon perceived the public’s desire to mythologize his former partner, he felt a need to search for the facts and truths of Lincoln’s life…not fictions…not fables.
