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Memoirs of a Lincoln Conspirator
An original member of Booth's conspiracy, Arnold had withdrawn from the plot only three weeks before the president's assassination. Captured, tried, and sentenced to life at hard labor at the infamous Dry Tortugas, Sam Arnold survived to tell his remarkable story in a vivid and compelling style. Based on Arnold's diaries, it is the only full-length account of Booth's conspiracy written by one of the accused. Published as a newspaper series in 1902, it is reproduced here verbatim, along with supplementary notes, appendices, and photographs.
- GenresAmerican History
224 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 24, 2024
The stuff about the conspiracy(ies) is good, especially when discussing Booth's strange charisma which along with other abstract elements are often difficult to capture in modern source-based biography. The star of the show is the 2/3 of the book dealing with Arnold's imprisonment in Fort Jefferson on the Dry Tortugas, a sort of proto-Guantanamo Bay, where daily life for the military guard units and prisoners alike devolves daily into a brutal moonshine-fueled fever dream horrorshow, where all pretenses of order, rationality, and human decency break down and burn away in the Gulf of Mexico.
June 21, 2022
Say what you will about Sam Arnold, but whether you believe he was involved in the assassination plot or merely the kidnapping plan, it was interesting to get a recounting of the formation of the plot and the time leading up to it from someone who was actually there. It was also cool to have insight into the character and personalities of each conspirator from someone who actually knew them.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews