Killing Lincoln: The Real Story

[Steven Hager]

Charles A. Dunham (alias San(d)ford Conover) is the key character to unveiling the plot, and if you saw Spielberg's Lincoln, you saw how political fixers like Dunham were used to bribe and bully Congressman to vote for the anti-slavery amendment. Dunham was a Zelig-like chameleon, master of a dozen fake identities, and possessed a "cool turpitude" in the implementation of bribery, extortion, theft and murder. The number of historians who studied Dunham is surprisingly small, less than a half dozen. David Barbee, whose archives are located at Georgetown University was the first I believe. Carming Cumming wrote the excellent "Devil's Game" for the U of I Press, my alma mater, (and the leading publisher in Lincoln research). I'd have to search my notes to discover the exact location of the bribe offer.