Moonlight - Abraham Lincoln and the Almanac Trial

[Gene C]

Written by John Walsh in 2000. 164 pages including Prologue, Appendix A, B and C,
and 28 pages of Notes. 97 pages of text.

John Walch also wrote The Shadows Rise : Abraham Lincoln and the Ann Rutledge Legend. That was a good book.
This one is not so good.

In his Prolgue, Walsh states on p.2, "...he (Lincoln) did something totally out of character for him, manipulating the truth. The manipulation certainly involved witness tampering and the suppression of evidence, and may have involved the criminal act of suborning perjury"

Walsh is quick to point out "...considering how every moment, every utterance of Lincoln's life has become under scrutiny - no one ever bothered to make a full scale investigation (the present volume is the first book devoted to the subject, a surprise in itself)

A more detailed review of this book by Daniel Stowell titled "Moonlight Offers Little Light" is in the winter 2003 issue of The Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Society
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/262986...=Moonlight
In this thorough review, Stowell concludes
"Unfortunately, Walsh's examination of this case fails to capture the significance of the case for Lincoln or for the study of Lincoln's legal career. His careless use of sources and his determination to accuse Lincoln of suppressing evidence, tampering with witnesses, and suborning perjury force him to make unfounded leaps and to ignore competing evidence, resulting in a work of fiction disguised as history. The people's case against William "Duff" Armstrong awaits more careful treatment.

It also doesn't get the greatest reviews on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Moonlight-Abraham...13&sr=8-1#

I was disappointed in this book. Still, it does have it's good points. There is more background information (some of it conflicting) than you will find in most other books, the print size is very readable, and there are very affordable copies available. I got mine from ABE Books, like new, for only $6.14

[jbarry]

Sky & Telescope Magazine wrote an article in Aug 1990 "Lincoln and the Almanac Trial" that demonstrated Lincoln told the truth about the condition of the moon that night, even though we do not know which almanac he consulted.

[David Lockmiller]

Quoting from the article:

"At the request from various Lincoln historians over the years, the lunar phase and time of moonset on the night of August 29-30, 1857, have been calculated by many prominent astronomers -- in 1871 by Elias J. Loomis, in 1909 and again in 1925 by Joel Stebbins, in 1925 by the staff of Yerkes Observatory, in 1928 by Harvard College Observatory, in 1905, 1925, and 1976 by the U. S. Naval Observatory. All found moonset time near 12:04 a.m. on August 30, 1857, supporting Lincoln's claim that the moon at 11 p.m. on the 29th was low and near to setting."

The table titled THE MOON "RUNS LOW" ON AUGUST 29-30, 1857 on page 188 of the Sky and Telescope, August 1990 issue shows that on August 29, 1857 at 11 p.m. the moon stood at 8 degrees altitude above the horizon at the time of the fatal fight.

As Carl Sagan might say: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."