Something New

[Wild Bill]

RE: Paige Booth's post #1 above in this thread 06/27/14 on the Scorpion's Sting by James Oakes.

I would recommend that one first read his Freedom National referred to by Rob Wick in post#1 under the thread New Books, 12/02/12. It gives one the background to better understand Oakes' Scorpion's Sting, a series of more intricate historical essays delivered as part of the Walter L Fleming Lectures, a more or less annual event sponsored by the History Department at Louisiana State University. Otherwise she is correct--it is fascinating and essential to understanding where the N and S stood at the eve of secession and during the war on the issue of emancipation.

Also, I have another of my historical novels that Laurie despises coming out this Fall called The Assassinator: The Trial and Hanging of John Wilkes Booth, a sort of what if look at an alternative history, complete with footnotes and real history, that assumes that Booth did not die at Garrett's Farm but lived to face a military commission as did his co-conspirators, and explaining Booth's attempt to defend his actions at Ford's Theater, April 14, 1865, when denied that opportunity by rules of the court.