John Surratt: The Lincoln Assassin Who Got Away

A Foreword Reviews IndieFAB Award Finalist for 2015 History Book of the Year! Impeccable scholarship wrapped in page-turning prose: John Surratt: The Lincoln Assassin Who Got Away presents an astonishing new perspective on the Lincoln Assassination. Previous books and films have focused on the triggerman, John Wilkes Booth, or the military trial of the conspirators and the hanging of Mary E. Surratt, John Surratt s mother, but no major book has focused on this bold and clever Confederate Secret Service agent who was Booth s closest associate during the four months leading up to the assassination. Surratt is the man who met with the Confederate high command just weeks prior to the assassination! Adding to the intrigue, Surratt s two-year run from the law is a fascinating adventure, spanning the globe from New York to Canada, Great Britain, France, Italy and Egypt. At one point Surratt joined the Pope s army in Italy, until he was unmasked by a former acquaintance who tracked him across the ocean and the European Continent. Arrested by order of the Pope, Surratt escaped from the hilltop castle of Veroli by a daring leap over a parapet into a 100-foot chasm.John Surratt: The Lincoln Assassin Who Got Away explores the relationships that defined John Surratt s life: his love-hate for his college chum and bed-mate Louis J. Weichmann, who testified against him and his mother; his adventures with and possible love for the mysterious veiled lady spy, Sarah Nettie Slater; and his profound guilt over his executed mother, whom he abandoned to save his own skin. Ultimately a hung jury freed him from any punishment for the crime of the century other than survival at the expense of his soul.