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Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse Review

Being greatly interested in anything to do with Abraham Lincoln (easy to do while living in Illinois because there is so much Lincoln history here), I was excited to read "Bloody Crimes". A few years ago, I read James Swanson's previous Lincoln book "Manhunt" and quite enjoyed that one. "Bloody Crimes" focuses on what happens after Lincoln dies and follows his path from Washington D.C. to the tomb in Springfield. A lot of books have been written about the assassination but they don't really focus on what happens after Lincoln dies. The book goes into detail about how the Washington D.C. funeral was put together and what happened on each stop of the funeral train. There were details about Lincoln's funeral that I didn't know about previously. I got immersed in the details and sort of felt like I was there experiencing the mourning back in 1865.

It also follows what happens to Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, in the final days of the Civil War. To be honest, I don't know much about Jefferson Davis and it was interesting to find out about him more. I think as someone from the North and that the North won the war, I've been kind of taught that Confederates were bad and evil but I found out that Jefferson Davis was just a regular man who just happened to be elected as the president of the Confederacy. Yes, the intentions of the confederacy were not right but Jefferson Davis was not evil through and through. He, like Lincoln, was a man with a wife and children. He suffered sorrows just like Lincoln. He was a well-respected man in Washington before the war. The book shows that even though these two men are fighting for two very different causes, they are more alike than what we thought.

I very much enjoyed reading this book. My only gripe is that the author shows his views on Mary Lincoln whenever she is mentioned in the book. Mary Lincoln is a woman that most people seem to love or hate. I'm probably one of the few that see her both ways-she certainly was not perfect and had a lot of bad qualities but I feel sympathy towards her somewhat. But Mr. Swanson seems to have a slight vendetta against Mrs. Lincoln. He mentioned that she should have let Tad Lincoln go on the funeral train back to Springfield but was selfish and made him stay. But Robert Lincoln did not go on the train for the whole trip, so why should Tad? There were other Mary Lincoln mentions that left a slight distaste in my mouth and I felt that perhaps Mr. Swanson should have been a bit more impartial in talking about Mrs. Lincoln. But other than that, I'm proud to have this book on the shelf with my other Lincoln books. "Bloody Crimes" is a must read for any fans of Lincoln (I know there are a lot out there) or anyone interested in reading non-fiction about the Civil War era.

Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse Overview

On the morning of April 2, 1865, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, received a telegram from General Robert E. Lee. There is no more time—the Yankees are coming, it warned. Shortly before midnight, Davis boarded a train from Richmond and fled the capital, setting off an intense and thrilling chase in which Union cavalry hunted the Confederate president.

Two weeks later, President Lincoln was assassinated, and the nation was convinced that Davis was involved in the conspiracy that led to the crime. Lincoln's murder, autopsy, and White House funeral transfixed the nation. His final journey began when soldiers placed his corpse aboard a special train that would carry him home on the 1,600-mile trip to Springfield. Along the way, more than a million Americans looked upon their martyr's face, and several million watched the funeral train roll by. It was the largest and most magnificent funeral pageant in American history.

To the Union, Davis was no longer merely a traitor. He became a murderer, a wanted man with a 0,000 bounty on his head. Davis was hunted down and placed in captivity, the beginning of an intense and dramatic odyssey that would transform him into a martyr of the South's Lost Cause.

The saga that began with Manhunt continues with the suspenseful and electrifying Bloody Crimes. James Swanson masterfully weaves together the stories of two fallen leaders as they made their last expeditions through the bloody landscape of a wounded nation.

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Customer Reviews

Not nearly as interesting as Manhunt, but for history buffs, an excellent book! - HardyBoy64 - Rexburg, ID United States
Swanson takes two somewhat obscure elements of the Civil War period and intertwines them into an interesting read. Without the suspense so evident in his early book "Manhunt", "Bloody Crimes" narrates the pilgrimage of Lincoln's body from Washington,DC to his beloved Springfield in relationship with the hunt for confederate ex-president Jefferson Davis. Initially, the relationship of these two events seemed very random to me and honestly, I still feel like the book is a bit awkward at times. However, Swanson creates a beautiful parallel between Lincoln and Davis and is able to connect the historical events into one understandable narrative. While I certainly recommend this book for history buffs, those mildly interested in the time period will find "Manhunt" a much more enjoyable read.

Satisfying Follow-Up To Manhunt - gail powers - Harbor Country, Mi,N. Naples, FL, Chicago area
MANHUNT was author/historian James Swanson's wildly popular history of the search for Lincoln's assasin John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators. This book picks up where MANHUNT left off and covers Lincoln's long last journey back to Springfield IL and the pageantry and security details that accompanied that trip. Counterpointing the Lincoln funeral procession are the last days of the Civil War and the search for Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America.
In direct comparison to MANHUNT, this book is probably a little less exciting because it is less frenetic than a nationwide manhunt for an assassin that is being concealed by his sympathizers. Manhunt is edgy. BLOODY CRIMES has its edge, but is less suspenseful in the sense that the writing is pretty much on the wall. Lincoln is dead and never to be resurected and the Civil War is pretty much over and the Confederacy is broken. The only things needed are closure: get the Confederacy to surrender and get Lincoln to his funeral and burial.
BLOODY CRIMES works because it is deeply based in fact, it is accurate on all counts, and it is interesting. James Swanson pulls all the elements together in a readable text that guarantees that it will not bore his readers while putting forth the happenings on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line during the Civil War's final limping days. As for Lincoln's death march, I'm an Illinois kid. In VA, they school their kids in the state's history and founding fathers. In Illinois we know about Lincoln. I've read a lot about the funeral and tomb and have been to the Lincoln Library, but I still found this interesting. Swanson managed to pull this together for me and greatly enhanced my knowledge on that front. If you like this period in american history, you will most likely enjoy this book.

Poignant, compelling account of the end of the Civil War - Bruce Trinque - Amston, CT United States
James Swanson's "Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse" is to to some extent a companion piece for his enthralling "Manhunt", the story of the hunt for John Wilkes Booth after the Lincoln Assassination. But "Bloody Crimes" is painted upon a much broader canvas and becomes a dramatic, illuminating portrait of the end of the American Civil War. The tale is told by intertwining two skeins: the funeral of Abraham Lincoln and elaborate transportation of his body to its grave in Illinois, a lengthy somber journey that did much to raise Lincoln's stature in the American memory; and the efforts of Jefferson Davis not so much as to escape capture as instead to bring the remnants of the Confederate Government to safety in what remained of the Confederacy west of the Mississippi River to continue the war until victory could be achieved, a journey that was probably doomed from the start.

In comparing these journeys of Lincoln and Davis in the immediate aftermath of the fighting of the Civil War, Swanson explores the pasts and personalities of these two men, both similar and yet so different. It perhaps was tempting to make one man a hero and the other a villain, of sorts, but Swanson shows admiration for both leaders, and he does much to restore Davis's place in American history as something more than a hopeless failure. Swanson's page-turning account is an emotionally effective of the weeks when America turned from her most devisive war to the troubled peace beyond.

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Saturday, September 25, 2010