Nicholas L. Vulich - Killing The Presidents: Presidential Assassinations and Assassination Attempts

Killing the Presidents

Presidential Assassinations and Assassination Attempts

Copyright 2013 / 2016 by Nicholas L. Vulich

ISBN-13: 978-0615782072

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Assassination of political leaders is nothing exclusive to America.

Shakespeare made a career out of re-telling stories of political intrigue, assassination, and murder. Think Caesar, Hamlet, and Macbeth. Nearly a dozen assassination attempts were made on Queen Victoria during her sixty some year reign. The assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand was one of many factors that plunged Europe into World War I.

In America, four presidents have lost their lives to assassins bullets. Fifteen presidents, besides these, have been victims of assassination attempts, and two others have conspiracy theories circulating regarding their deaths.

This leaves only twenty-two presidents untouched by the assassins shadow.

This book is going to take a look, first at the presidential assassinations, and the circumstances surrounding them, and second, at some of the various assassination attempts upon our leaders.

In most cases, the assassin is clearly defined. In others, like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, conspiracy theories abound, but the evidence for them is circumstantial at best.

As far back as the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, people have looked for larger conspiracies, rather than examining just the facts. In Lincolns case, it has been suggested Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton was behind Lincolns demise. The reasoning was Stanton did not like Lincolns lenient policies towards reconstruction of the South.

Mary Todd Lincoln believed Vice-President Andrew Johnson killed her husband. Many more villains have been identified, including the Roman Catholic Church, a Confederate bid for revenge, or even a group of international bankers.

But, it doesnt end there.

In 1980, Author Clara Rising convinced the family of Zachary Taylor to have his body exhumed to search for evidence of foul play. There was none.

Similar theories are told about the death of Warren G. Harding. He died after a week long illness while touring Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. The official explanation was he died from a heart attack or stroke. Because Mrs. Harding refused to allow an autopsy, conspiracy theories say she killed him. See The Strange Death of President Harding (1930) by Gaston B. Means.

But, conspiracies are for another tale. This book will tell the facts.

March 3rd, 1865. Abraham Lincoln was on horseback, riding towards Petersburg, Virginia, accompanied by his bodyguard William Crook. They were on their way to meet General Ulysses S. Grant, who had just captured Petersburg.

Crook described the grisly scene as they crossed the battlefield, I can still see one man with a bullet-hole through his forehead and another with both arms shot away. Everywhere around them were strewn dead bodies, and the carnage of war.

The next day, March 4th, Lincoln and Crook started towards Richmond, Virginia with Admiral Porter. Richmond had just fallen, and Porter thought the President should survey the city. Porter felt Lincolns appearance there so soon after the fall would help show the South the Governments confidence in her people.

Crook described Richmond as black with Negroes. Together with Lincoln, and his youngest son Tad, they moved through the streets of Richmond with the Negroes watching in awe. Many of them came up to shake Lincolns hand. People stared and watched their every move from behind the safety of their windows. Crook imagined guns being poked through the windows at every turn pointed at the President.

On March 14th, Lincoln told his bodyguard, Crook, do you know, I believe there are men who want to take my life? After a short pause, he said, half to himself, And I have no doubt they will do it.

At the time, Crook and Lincoln were walking past a crowd of drunken rowdies on their way to the War Department to meet with Secretary Stanton.

Lincolns biographer, and boyhood friend, Ward Lamon Hill, relates a similar story Lincoln told him:

About ten days ago, said he, I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along. I saw light in all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. Who is dead in the White House? I demanded of one of the soldiers, The President, was his answer; he was killed by an assassin. Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which woke me from my dream. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since.

That is horrid! said Mrs. Lincoln, who was also present. It is only a dream, responded Mr. Lincoln thoughtfully, it is only a dream, Mary. Let us say no more about it, and try to forget it.

John Wilkes Booth first met Doctor Samuel Mudd in November of 1864 during a trip to Charles County, Maryland. Over dinner, Booth inquired about the doctors sentiments, and asked for a letter of introduction to other Southern sympathizers.

Mudd didnt share any information with Booth. Booths questions made him suspicious. Mudd determined Booth had to be a Union spy. Why else would he be asking all those questions?

On December 23, 1864, Booth ran into Doctor Mudd again, this time outside of the National Hotel in Washington. Booth convinced Mudd to introduce him to John Surratt.

Surratt joined the group of conspirators. Because he was the only one of them who lived permanently in Washington, the conspirators met frequently at his mothers boarding house. In these meetings Mary Surratt came to know Booth as Pet. She knew Atzerodt as Port Tobacco, and Powell as either Baptist Minister or Wood.

The plan as originally hatched by John Wilkes Booth, was to kidnap Lincoln, and whisk him off to Richmond. Once there, he assumed the South could exchange Lincoln for the freedom of all Southern soldiers held by the Union, or some other bounty beneficial to the Confederacy.

Booth and his fellow conspirators, Samuel Arnold and Michael O Laughlen, assembled together on March 17th, 1865. They planned to kidnap the President on his way to watch the play, Still Waters Run Deep at the Campbell Military Hospital.

They intended to stop Lincolns coach just outside of Washington. John Surratt was to drive the coach because he was most familiar with the area. When they were out of sight, they planned to abandon the coach. Booth had relays of horses hidden away along the route. At Port Tobacco, he had a boat waiting to make their final escape.