The Assassin's Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln - Softcover

"Spectator" "Larson captures brilliantly the atmosphere of Mary Surratt's trial in a crowded court room -- murder trials attract morbid spectators -- during the sweltering heat of a Washington summer. Her description of the drama of Mary's last hours, when she was broken by a death sentence that neither she nor her lawyers had believed possible, makes compelling reading."

Set against the backdrop of the Civil War, The Assassin's Accomplice tells the gripping story of the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln through experience of its only female participant. Confederate sympathizer Mary Surratt ran a boarding house in Washington, and the depth of her complicity in the murder of President Lincoln has been debated since she was arrested on April 17, 1865. Calling upon long-lost interviews, confessions, and court testimony, historian Kate Clifford Larson magnificently captures how Surratt's actions defied nineteenth-century norms of piety and allegiance. A riveting account of espionage and murder, The Assassin's Accomplice offers a revealing examination of America's most remembered assassination.