Bloody Times: The Funeral of Abraham Lincoln and the Manhunt for Jefferson Davis

New York Times bestselling author of Manhunt James L. Swanson creates an adaptation for young people of his adult book Bloody Crimes, a suspense-filled thriller that sheds light on two fallen leaders of the North and South. One man, President Lincoln, assassinated, on his way to the grave. Another man, the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, on the run, soon to be sent to prison. Their actions forever changed the history of a nation. On the morning of April 2, 1865, Davis received a telegram from General Robert E. Lee. There is no more time—the Yankees are coming, it warned. That night Davis fled Richmond, setting off an intense manhunt for the Confederate president.

Two weeks later, President Lincoln was assassinated, and the nation was convinced that Davis was involved in the conspiracy that led to the crime. Lincoln’s murder, autopsy, and White House funeral transfixed the nation. His final journey began when soldiers placed his corpse aboard a special train that would carry him home to Springfield, Illinois. Along the way, more than a million Americans looked upon their martyr’s face, and several million watched the funeral train roll by. It was the most magnificent funeral pageant in American history.

James L. Swanson captures the riveting stories of these two influential men as they made their last journeys through the bloody landscape of a wounded nation.