This is an outstanding book for anyone who really wants to get a glimpse of the Lincoln assassination as though you were there, or at least hearing about it via contemporaneous accounts. It helps sort out what probably happened from a lot of the embellishments that came later, but now seem to be accepted as facts in many places.

My biggest concern in buying this book was that so many accounts of essentially the same things would become repetitive. As it turns out, not the case at all--not only are the accounts about many different aspects of the assassination and many different perspectives among those, the editor/author adds enough commentary to place each in context.

A must-read for anyone interested in the Lincoln assassination.

A profound book, more so than I expected. It's basically a collection of 100 eyewitness accounts of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, focusing on the event itself. I read it cover to cover ... so I read about the assassination again, and again, and again. But one can pick up so much more.

You see complex insight into how witnesses felt after; how rumor of other tragedies spread in the hours after, as it can today; why some Southerners hated Lincoln and cheered his death; and, ultimately, why those who loved him were so profoundly affected. The last sentence of the book, from the last account, in particular, strikes me as heartbreakingly mournful -- from an obituary of the last living person to witness the assassination as a small child, and who passed away in 1954.

It's also interesting to note how much discrepancy can be found from account to account. This book should prove for all time that human memory is frail; and that what we swore we saw, no matter how firmly, is not always what actually happened. If these people are to be believed, a dozen or more different people tended to Lincoln immediately after the shooting and/or carried him from the theater. Of most interesting note, this book provides evidence, through its accounts, that Booth *did not* break his leg in the fall from the box to the stage -- a myth perpetuated to this day. You'll even find it mentioned in online encyclopedia articles.

A very good book, more likely better for skimming or reading in bits, although I read it sequentially. It gave me a greater appreciation of Lincoln in a human sense -- for his reality, not the myth. The book made me sad that we lost him -- but I also found myself thanking him for his achievements.

Recommended, especially to those with an interest in Lincoln's life or the assassination.

Good's book captures the immediacy of a dramatic and tragic moment in U.S. history: when John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in Ford's Theater in April 1865. Reading the accounts of eyewitnesses, we can all feel as if we were there--the lights are down, the actors are saying their lines, a gunshot pierces the air, a man leaps from the presidential balcony onto the stage, he yells something and waves a knife and disappears. Pandemonium ensues.

This book would make a good companion volume to James Swanson's Manhunt. Read them in chronological order (this book first) and be transported back 140 years.

Good's book captures the immediacy of a dramatic and tragic moment in U.S. history: when John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in Ford's Theater in April 1865. Reading the accounts of eyewitnesses, we can all feel as if we were there--the lights are down, the actors are saying their lines, a gunshot pierces the air, a man leaps from the presidential balcony onto the stage, he yells something and waves a knife and disappears. Pandemonium ensues.

This book would make a good companion volume to James Swanson's Manhunt. Read them in chronological order (this book first) and be transported back 140 years.