Now in its second edition, this highly rated book by a Lincoln assassination expert takes to task the long-held notion that Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was a poor, innocent doctor who was sent to prison for setting the broken leg of an assassin that he did not recognize.  For years, historians have fought to overcome family efforts to ignore known facts.  This book sets the record straight about Dr. Mudd’s activities on slave patrols, in the Confederate underground resistance in Southern Maryland, his repeated contacts with John Wilkes Booth, and more.

Realizing that the Confederacy was losing the war, Dr. Luke Blackburn decided in 1864-65 to attempt a yellow fever epidemic in the North by spreading contaminated clothing from victims in Bermuda.  Blackburn was a Confederate sympathizer with experience in the field of infectious diseases.  His plot was to include President Abraham Lincoln.  Did it work?  Read the book; it is based on historical records, documents, and factual accounts.  
 

In the 1850s, a novel set the world on fire.  Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin and based her title character, Uncle Tom, on a Canadian gentleman who had been born into slavery here in Southern Maryland and eventually found the means to escape with his family to Canada and form a community known as Dawn.  He set out to work with the Underground Railroad system to secure freedom for other enslaved people.  He was invited to meet with Mrs. Stowe, who also read his memoirs and was inspired to include a fictional character similar to him in her book.  Mr. Henson went on to be invited to Queen Victoria’s court. 

Soon after the American Civil War began in 1861, Union leaders recognized the need to establish an intelligence system in order to flush out Confederate sympathizers, spies, and troop movements.  In the beginning, however, it was more of a game of competition between certain detectives as well as members of Lincoln’s administration.  Mr. Waller, a well-known journalist and historian, takes readers on a detailed (and often critical) analysis of the jobs done by Allan Pinkerton, Lafayette Baker, and lesser known figures who did a better job – Elizabeth Van Lew, working as a Union sympathizer and spy right in the heart of Richmond society, and Major General George Sharpe, whom many would judge as the “father” of military intelligence.  The book also paints a good picture of our country’s society, culture, politics, and military during this period without dwelling on military tactics and battles.