Last updated 2:55PM ET
November 7, 2009
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Book is Out About Lincoln's Assassination Plot
(2009-03-09)
(wsiu) - An engraving and a clipping form a Chicago newspaper helped inspire one man to search for more information about Abraham Lincoln's killer, and now his newest book is out.

James Swanson, who grew up in Chicago, said when he decided to write a kids' book, he asked kids what details should be left out, but says the kids asked him to not hold anything back. Swanson says Lincoln isn't the cornpone man that myth has made him out to be, and that the Booth story is much more complicated than most people learn from history books.

Swanson says this book explains how big the conspiracy against Lincoln and his supporters was.

Swanson, learned about the 16th president and his killer in grade school, but it was presents for his 10th birthday that put him on this path.

His grandmother gave him a framed engraving of John Wilkes Booth Derringer pistol, which he used to kill Lincoln, and part of a clipping from the Chicago Tribune from April 15th, 1865, when Lincoln died.

Swanson used copies of these and many other items in his book, Chasing Lincoln's Killer.
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