April '65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War (Eastern European Studies; 1)
In this sequel to his Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln (LJ 10/1/88), former intelligence officer Tidwell takes us on a flashlight tour into the labyrinths of neglected records and the nooks of Confederate espionage to show more organization, purpose, and success in the Confederate's clandestine activity in the North, Canada, and Europe than heretofore imagined?all to support his argument that John Wilkes Booth was part of a concerted Confederate strategy to disrupt the Union high command in 1865. After a failed effort to kidnap Lincoln and an aborted effort to blow up the White House, Booth improvised his own plan to kill the president and others in the line of command and thus to save the Confederacy. Tidwell's absolutely engrossing account will not answer all doubters about Booth's authority and role, but it should silence the conspiracy theorists who link prominent Union men with Booth in his plan and escape. An exemplary example of historical sleuthing for all libraries.?Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., PhiladelphiaCopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.