Chapter 17As much as I had read and studied history, it was still difficult for me to comprehend the convulsions seizing the country upon the death of one man. I traveled to Yanube City a week after the assassination and found the townspeople’s anger and fear had been refocused from savage, murdering redskins onto savage, murdering Confederates. John Wilkes Booth and another of the conspirators had been cornered in a barn on a Virginia farm. His companion surrendered, but Booth suffered a gunshot and later died. A whole host of others had been rounded up and faced trial. The death cry was on everyone’s lips. Why couldn’t they let this man—this Lincoln—walk the Western Road in peace? The answer to that question came easily. Because even in death he could be used to accomplish the goals of s
