Killing Lincoln/Killing Kennedy (35 page)
Read Killing Lincoln/Killing Kennedy Online
Authors: Bill O'Reilly,Martin Dugard
Old Clubhouse
Our American Cousin
(play)
playbill
rehearsals
Papal Zouaves
Parke, John G.
Parker, John
Pennsylvania House hotel
Petersburg, Virginia
Petersen house
Philip II of Macedon
Pickett, George
Pinkerton agents
playbill,
Our American Cousin
Point Lookout
Pollack, Wally
Porter, Horace
Port Royal
Port Tobacco
posters, reward
Potomac River
attack on Seward family
escape of
hanging of
role in assassination plot
trial of
prostitution
Pumphrey, James
Rappahannock River
Rathbone, Henry Reed
Read, Theodore
Reconstruction
religion
reunification
Revolutionary War
reward posters
Rhode Island
Rice’s Station
Richmond, Virginia
fall of
River Queen
(steamboat)
Robinson, George
Rollins, Edward H.
Rosser, Thomas Lafayette
Rozier, Margaret
Sample, Bill
Sayler’s Creek, battle of
secessionist movement
Sessford, John
Seward, August
Seward, Fanny
Seward, Frederic
Seward, William H.
attack on
death of
house of
life after attack
Macbeth
Romeo and
Juliet
Sherman, William Tecumseh
Sioux Indians
slavery
freedom
runaway slaves
Soles, Jacob
South Carolina
Spain
Spangler, Ned
spies
Union
Stanton, Edwin M.
conspiracy plot and
death of
life after Lincoln’s death
Lincoln and
at Lincoln’s deathbed
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
suffrage
Sumner, Isabel
Supreme Court
Surratt, Anna
Surratt, John death of
search for
boardinghouse of
hanging of
physical appearance
in prison
reburial of
role in assassination plot
tavern of
trial and sentence of
Taltavul, Peter
Taltavul’s Star Saloon
Taylor, Zachary
telegraph
Tennessee
Texas
Thomas, Lorenzo
tobacco
Treasurγ, U.S.
trial of co-conspirators
Twain, Mark
cavalry
control of Richmond
High Bridge
last days of war
Lee’s surrender and
at Petersburg
Sayler’s Creek
United States Colored Troops (USCT)
Usher, John P.
destruction of Richmond
High Bridge
Petersburg
Sayler’s Creek
Washburn, Francis
Washington, D.C.
Grant in
Lincoln’s funeral procession
post-assassination mourning
postwar celebrations
smuggling and escape routes
Webster, Amos
Weichmann, Louis
Westfall, John William
West Point
whiskey
White House
Lincoln’s last speech at
open-door policy
Willard Hotel
Williams, Barney
Wilson, Woodrow
Withers, William
Wright, Horatio
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The End of Camelot
Bill O’Reilly
and
Martin Dugard
This book is dedicated to my ancestors, the Kennedys of Yonkers, New York.
Hardworking, generous, and honest folks.
A Note to Readers
N
OVEMBER 22
,
1963
M
INEOLA
, N
EW
Y
ORK
A
PPROXIMATELY 2:00 P.M.
The students in Brother Carmine Diodati’s freshman Religion class were startled. Over the loudspeaker, a radio report crackled into the Chaminade High School classroom. President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas, and taken to the hospital. A short time later we would all learn he was dead. No one knew what to say.
Most Americans born before 1953 remember exactly where they were when they heard the news that JFK had been assassinated. The days following that terrible Friday were filled with sadness and confusion. Why did it happen? Who really killed the president? What kind of country did we live in anyway?
The assassination of JFK was somewhat personal for me. My maternal grandmother was born Winifred Kennedy, and my Irish-Catholic family had deep emotional ties to the young president and his family. It felt as if someone in my own home had died violently. Like most kids on Long Island, I didn’t care much about national politics. But I vividly remember pictures of JFK displayed in the homes of my relatives. To them, he was a saint. To me, he was a distant figure who died in a terrible way, his brain splattered all over the trunk of a car. The vision of his wife, Jacqueline, crawling onto the back of the limo in order to retrieve the president’s shattered skull has stayed with me always.
* * *
Martin Dugard and I were well pleased that millions of people read and enjoyed
Killing Lincoln
. We want to make history accessible to everyone. We want to tell readers exactly what happened and why, using a style that is entertaining as well as informative. After chronicling the last days of Abraham Lincoln, the progression to John Kennedy was a natural.
It has been widely pointed out that the two men had much in common. In fact, the parallels are amazing:
Lincoln was first elected in 1860, Kennedy in 1960.
Both were assassinated on a Friday, in the presence of their wives.
