The Lincoln Deception

The Lincoln Deception by David O. Stewart Page B

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Authors: David O. Stewart
Tags: Historical, Mystery
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his head. “Well, they were. I know about that. The lawyers defending the men who went to jail—you know, the one holding Booth’s horse and those boys from Baltimore—those lawyers were all right. They mostly made sense, you know, said things that helped their case. And the lawyers defending the ones who really did it, like Paine and the German guy who chickened out, what could they’ve done, anyway? Some cases can’t nobody win.
    â€œBut those ones representing that woman, every time they stood up, they made her case worse. Didn’t sit right with me. Maybe she did it and she’s nothing but pure evil, but when you’re sitting in a courtroom accused of a crime, you need help. Made me wonder whether they were paid to lose.”
    Cook had grown increasingly animated. In a low voice, Fraser said, “Speed, this is a public place here. These things, even if they happened a long time ago, they’re still sensitive. Keep it down, okay?”
    Cook’s face registered disdain, but he answered in a lower tone, “Another thing, I’m wondering why it couldn’t be someone in the North be behind killing Lincoln. Didn’t have to be the Confederates. Plenty of crackers and nigger-haters around Ohio, all through the North.”
    â€œQuiet?”
    â€œAll right, all right,” Cook said in a hoarse whisper that wasn’t much softer. “But you know there’s lots in Indiana, New York. Shoot, you know that Sons of Liberty group, those Northern men wanted the South to win? One of them came right from Cadiz. My daddy used to talk about it. Made him mad.”
    Fraser had heard enough. “There’s no basis for that theory. Look at all those connections that Booth and the Surratts have with Confederates, but none with the Sons of Liberty or with Northern Copperheads.”
    â€œHave you looked?”
    Fraser shooed the idea away. “There’s nothing about it in anything I read. Nothing to it. Nothing at all.”
    â€œMen used to think the Sun moved around the Earth.”
    Fraser didn’t answer. His silence accomplished what his answers had not. Cook stopped talking.
    While the forests of western Maryland sped by his window, Fraser thought that even if Cook tended to overdo it, this idea might be right. Fraser had to think about it quietly, not while being hectored by Cook. Mrs. Surratt could hardly have revealed to Mr. Bingham that the Confederates were connected to Booth, since that’s what Mr. Bingham had been saying all along, right through the trial—that the Confederacy sent Booth to kill Lincoln. Mrs. Surratt must have told him something else, something else that would threaten the republic in early July 1865.
    And the secret was still explosive enough that in 1900, when he was dying and knew he was dying, Mr. Bingham would say only that there was a secret, not what it was. Why couldn’t it be that Northerners were behind the Lincoln assassination?
    It was getting awkward that Fraser hadn’t told Cook about Mrs. Surratt’s confession to Mr. Bingham. He never decided not to tell Cook. It just never came up, and the longer it didn’t, the harder it was going to be to tell. He needed to do it soon.
    Â 
    They hired horses at the station and set off for Burkittsville, riding side by side through hilly country on a warm, glorious day. The farms they passed were small and neat, like those in eastern Ohio. Being close to Harpers Ferry prompted Cook to declaim on John Brown and his failed slave revolt in 1859. He quieted when they came upon a cemetery. Flowers lay on many graves. They dismounted and walked to the edge of a small crowd near a regal elm tree.
    They listened to the last two speakers, a politician and a minister, for the Memorial Day observance. The minister spoke of the sacrifices of the Union dead and the Confederate dead, both of whom lay buried there. The politician talked about the Spanish-American War

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