Book Review: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: Four Smoking Guns
The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: Four Smoking Guns. By John C. Fazio. Philadelphia, Pen and Sword Books, 2023. Hardcover, 178 pp. $32.95
Reviewed by Gordon Berg
Americans love a good conspiracy theory, especially if it involves the death of a prominent person. JFK, Princess Diana, the Lindberg baby, aviatrix Amelia Earhart, actress Natalie Wood, Judge Joseph Force Crater, Lord Lucan; the list goes on. The conspiracy theories that abounded around the assassination of Abraham Lincoln began even before his funeral train reached Springfield, Illinois. John C. Fazio, a lawyer by trade, is hardly the first to round up a merry band of shadowy suspects including Confederate President Jefferson Davis and members of his cabinet, rebel spymaster Jacob Thompson and other Confederate Secret Service agents in Canada, clandestine courier John Surratt, and a supporting cast of Southern zealots, some of whom are not usually linked to the assassination conspiracy.
Fazio, however, may be the first assassination investigators claiming to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt, and perhaps, even beyond a scintilla of doubt, by the use of clear and convincing evidence, which I have denominated ‘smoking guns’, that the Confederate government and its Secret Service were complicit in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and, in fact, complicit in an all-out effort to decapitate Union leadership in the closing days of the Civil War.” Fazio’s fast-paced, hyperbole laden, narrative follows the strands of this conspiratorial web to conclude that John Wilkes Booth was merely a pawn moved by powerful, desperate men in the waning days of a war now clearly lost unless an audacious act of monumental treachery could tilt the scales of history in their favor. Fazio details evidence he describes as “four smoking guns” to bolster his conclusions.
In making his case for Confederate complicity, Fazio draws heavily on investigations previously conducted by three career intelligence officers and presented in their book, Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln. The author’s opening argument makes clear the case he intends to present, namely “that Booth was an agent of the Secret Service, by which I mean that he worked for, under the authority of, pursuant to orders from, that Secret Service and/or its superiors in the Confederate government” from “early 1864 if not earlier.” Fazio also maintains that the conspirators never intended to kidnap Lincoln; assassination was the objective from the outset. Also, the number of intended victims went far beyond Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward, to include Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, General Ulysses S. Grant and as many as ten other government officials.
The transcript of the military tribunal that tried eight of the conspirators and hanged four of them contains statements eluding to the involvement of Confederate agents active in Canada with Booth. So why is Fazio’s linkage so revelatory? He has a wonderful, conspiratorial answer. “The case against the Confederate leaders collapsed,” he contends, “because of perjury that was mixed with truth to deodorize it and then deliberately planted in the fertile minds of the military commissioners by three of the government’s star witnesses.” Who were these masters of deception? Fazio names Richard Montgomery, Charles Dunham (aka Sanford Conover) and James B. Merritt. Their perjury, Fazio maintains, “was later exposed, as intended, thereby causing inculpatory evidence to be minimised (sic) and ultimately ignored.” Readers must evaluate Fazio’s evidence and decide for themselves if a conspiracy of such grand design was entrusted to such a motley crew of agents and if the reasons behind their limited success could remain elusive for 123 years.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. There are documents related to that event that are still classified. Disclosures by the last remaining secret service agent in the motorcade that day shed new light on the “magic bullet” theory and a new documentary has brought together seven trauma surgeons who worked on Kennedy at Parkland Hospital and it discloses their conclusion that the bullet that went through Kennedy’s throat was not fired from behind him, giving renewed life to the conspiratorial theory of a second shooter.
“Beyond a shadow of a doubt” is a phrase rarely, if ever, used by historians. Their task is to gather facts and data and then to organize and evaluate them to give the best, plausible rendition of past events available at that time. Eric Foner, an eminent historian of Lincoln and of Reconstruction, has said that every generation has to write history anew. So it will be with both Presidents Kennedy and Lincoln. There will undoubtedly be new smoking guns and magic bullets to evaluate and perhaps new conclusions to be drawn.
Gordon Berg has published dozens of articles and reviews in popular Civil War periodicals. He writes from Gaithersburg, Maryland.
In the book “Blood on the Moon,” describing the assassination plot and all “the usual suspects,” the author draws a direct connect between the Confederate Secret service, gold exchanged in Canada and the only organization with the secretive capabilities to work the connection between the Rebel government and $$ support, Mosby’s Rangers. He presents enough “preponderance of evidence” to cause considerable concern of simmering hate and one last strike by those in power having no idea what was in store for them under Federal Law.
Dear Charles:
Revenge is among the strongest human motivators, maybe the strongest. Those who are determined to have it rarely think about blowback. Confederate leaders were furious with the Lincoln Administration, not only because of so much destruction in the South by Union armies, including the burning of Atlanta and Columbia, the March to the Sea and the rape of the Shenandoah, but also for the Wistar and Dahlgren-Kilpatrick raids against Richmond in early 1864, which targeted Davis and his cabinet for capture and assassination, respectively. In these circumstances, the leaders were determined to have their pound of flesh and simply didn’t care what was in store for them under federal law, assuming they would be prosecuted. As it turned out, the grunts and the hatchet men went to the gallows or to the Dry Tortugas (Fort Jefferson), but the masterminds walked. —John C. Fazio (author)
While in Grade School it was revealed: “President Lincoln was assassinated by a failed actor, who also happened to be insane.” Years later, when a photograph of the four swinging bodies of the Lincoln Conspirators was encountered during a visit to Springfield, the feelings of disbelief, and of betrayal, were palpable: my Illinois school had lied to me.
Fifty years after my visit to Springfield and it is generally accepted that “there was a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln as he passed through Baltimore in February 1861.” Meanwhile, the evidence for the April 1865 “Decapitation of the United States Government,” (attempted, but not successful) continues to mount. Direct links to Jefferson Davis will never be found: too much insulation, and plausible deniability. But “something” will eventually turn up on Judah P. Benjamin, Davis’ most trusted lieutenant, who served the Confederacy as Attorney General, then Secretary of War, and grew three full years into the role of Secretary of State. It is my belief that Judah P. Benjamin, QC continued to advise Jefferson Davis from Europe; and Secretary Benjamin is one of the very few senior leaders of the Confederate Government never to return to America after departing in 1865.
John C. Fazio’s “Assassination of Abraham Lincoln?” Yes, I will put it on my Christmas List.
Dear Mike:
Booth was actually not a failed actor. On the contrary, he was one of the most famous and successful actors of his day. He was said to earn $20,000 per year in the period leading up to the assassination, an astronomical sum in those days. He could go anywhere he wanted to in the country to perform, and did, having a pass from none other than Ulysses S. Grant for the purpose. As he himself said “My name is my passport.” Despite all this, he was really quite stupid and was recognized as such by his brother, Edwin, and by top Confederate Secret Service agent Thomas Harbin. He was chosen by the Confederate leadership principally because of his ability to move freely about the country and because of his total dedication to the Southern cause.
There was a Baltimore plot to assassinate Lincoln on his way to Washington for the Inaugural from Springfield. Much has been written about it. It was organized by Cipriano Ferrandini. It was foiled by the ingenuity of Frederick Seward (the Secretary of State’s son), Allan Pinkerton, head of the Detective Agency that bears his name, one of his top agents, Kate Warne, and others, who arranged to juggle trains and schedules to outfox the foxes.
If by “direct links” you mean a writing or writings in which Davis or another Confederate leader orders the death of one or more persons, you are right: no such writing will ever be found, because no such writing ever existed. Such orders would only be given verbally directly to an operative or to an intermediary. Most likely, nothing will turn up implicating Judah P. Benjamin either. His oversight of the year of terror orchestrated from Canada did not include written orders. Further, it is known that he destroyed all his records and correspondence when he left the country after the fall of Richmond on April 2, 1865. After an unbelievably harrowing journey and in the company of only one man for most of it, he made it safely to England, where he carved out a successful career as a Barrister and Queen’s Counsel. He died a natural death in Paris at the age of 72 and is buried there. He announced before his death that he would write no memoirs or reminiscences and he destroyed whatever written records and correspondence that he had left. While in England, he never spoke of the American Civil War or of his role it. And he never returned to the United States. He knew, of course, that if he were caught by federal authorities, he would be tried, convicted and executed. Whether or not he continued to counsel Davis when he was in Europe, I simply don’t know. Davis was in prison for a couple of years. It is entirely possible and may even have had something to do with Davis’s eventually release without trial.
Thank you for putting my book on your Christmas list. I’m sure you will enjoy it, and it is an easy read.—-John C. Fazio (Author)
I’m old enough to remember when the hot conspiracy take for the Lincoln assassination was that Stanton was behind it. Booth was involved in the Confederate secret service and may well have received some money from them, but it is a huge leap to then say that the Confederacy was behind Lincoln’s assassination. Davis and his associates would be looking at summary execution if that was established. Andrew Johnson and Stanton don’t strike me as forgiving types.
As for Kennedy, Oswald acted alone. People forget that Kennedy came to Oswald, Oswald did not come to Kennedy. The number of random people whose actions allowed Oswald to get a job right on the motorcade route defy any thought of a conspiracy. Not to mention that Oswald would have to be complicit in his own death since his decision to change clothes in jail was the only thing that gave Ruby enough time to get into the garage to shot him. By the way, at least two, not one, Secret Service agents from the motorcade are still around: Paul Landis and Clint Hill.
Dear Bill:
The complicity of Stanton was the thesis of Otto Eisenschiml, made famous in a book he wrote and published in, I believe, the late 30’s. He and his work have since been thoroughly discredited. Stanton was innocent. As was Johnson. And as was Mary Todd Lincoln, to allude to another crackpot theory.
Do you suppose that Booth, as a member of the Confederate Secret Service (I list 18 reasons for concluding that he was), together with his immediate action team (most of whom were incompetent) would not follow their orders or, worse, act contrary to their orders, or do something with such momentous political and military consequences as the decapitation of the United States government, without their knowledge, approval, counsel, guidance and support? Do you really believe that? There was no way Davis and his associates would look at summary execution, regardless of what Johnson and Stanton thought. Federal leadership was too smart to do something that was that counter-productive. Davis would first have to be convicted, but the federal government was most loathe to even bring him to trial for fear of acquittal by a Virginia jury and for fear of Confederate arguments that favored the legality of secession.
Well, they weren’t going to get a conviction without a trial, obviously. So Davis spent two years in prison (Fortress Monroe) and was then bailed out by two Northerners who could afford it. He was then and for the rest of his life a free man, which suited the federal government just fine. Benjamin left the country, never to return. The others had a variety of endings: some went abroad for various periods and then returned; some were tried; some were convicted; some were not convicted, etc. In the end, the grunts and the hatchet men went to the gallows and the Dry Tortugas (Fort Jefferson), but the masterminds walked. When, Bill, I ask you when, has it ever been otherwise?
Dear Mr. Lenaburg:
Thank you for your review of my book.
I should like to address the issue which, in your opinion, remains unexplored, namely: Why weren’t the deep suspicions about the involvement of the Confederate government in Lincoln’s death brought out in the Northern press after the investigations and interrogations of the conspirators. There are several answers to that question. First, they WERE brought out in the Northern press and in many other sources and outlets as well. These were alive with accusations and implications of the complicity of the Confederate government in the Great Crime. Here, for example, are a few quotes to illustrate: “The assassination is not the act of one man; but only one scene of a great drama.”—Edward Bates, Attorney General in the Cabinet of Abraham Lincoln; “Confusion and mystery still surround the shooting of Abraham Lincoln, and we probably will never know all the facts. One thing is sure: his murder was part of a larger conspiracy.”—Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and the United States Army Medical Museum, Washington, D. C.; “…the details of this plot had evidently been arranged by the hand of a master…”—Captain Theodore McGowan, Assistant Adjutant General to Major General Christopher C. Augur and a witness at the trial of the conspirators.
As for Stanton, it was he, as head of the War Department, who was responsible for adding Confederate leaders to the list of defendants in the trial of the conspirators in May and June of 1865, as unindicted co-conspirators, i.e. Jefferson Davis, George N. Sanders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay, George Harper, George Young “and others unknown”. The case against them collapsed because of the perjury planted by Richard Montgomery, Charles Dunham (“Sanford Conover”) and James Merritt, who were ostensibly agents for the Union Secret Service (the National Detective Police, under Lafayette C. Baker), but who may have been double or even triple agents and whose true loyalties (assuming they had the same) may never be known and most probably won’t be. When the perjured testimony was revealed to be such, as intended, the case against the unindicted co-conspirators collapsed despite the fact that credible evidence untainted by perjury had been introduced at the trial. Those who have read or seen Agatha Christie’s famous play, Witness for the Prosecution, will recognize that this is the same ploy used by her so effectively in that masterpiece.
As for your comment that readers must evaluate the evidence presented in the book and decide for themselves if a conspiracy of such grand design was entrusted to such a motley crew of agents and if the reasons behind their limited success could remain elusive for 123 years, it was not the “motley crew of agents”, i.e. Booth and his action team to whom responsibility for conception and execution of the ploy was entrusted (indeed it is nearly certain that with the possible exception of John Surratt (Booth’s right hand and Judah Benjamin’s “most trusted courier”) none of them even knew about it); they were merely the grunts and the hatchet men. It was, rather, to the masterminds in Canada (principally Montreal) and Richmond to whom it was entrusted. These were far from “a motley crew of agents”; they were, rather, very wealthy, powerful and influential men (and maybe some women) whose backs were to the wall, having just lost a war and now determined to save the lives and fortunes of their leaders. Further, the grunts and the hatchet men went to the gallows and the Dry Tortugas (Fort Jefferson), but Davis and the other leaders, and the men (and maybe some women) who assured their survival, walked. I do not call that “limited success”; I call it an incredible success.