For someone who reads theology all year round, it’s nice to have a light, non-note-taking summer read that gets the heart racing and strains the eyeballs in afternoon-long episodes of reading on the porch. And thanks to C.J. Mahaney’s recommendations, I found a book for that exact purpose.
Riveting, sorrowful, and well-worth the time, James L. Swanson’s book takes an historical, hour-by-hour look at the events following Lincoln’s assassination. There’s so much I didn’t know, like the fact that John Wilkes Booth’s team of conspirators also targeted William Seward and Andrew Johnson.
This quote, from Boston Corbett, the man who shot Booth, fascinated me (I hope it doesn’t give away too much):
“While Booth’s body lay before me, yet alive, but wounded, and when I saw that the bullet had struck him just back of the ear, about the same spot that his bullet hit Mr. Lincoln, I said within myself, ‘what a fearful God we serve’” (pp. 340-41).
