Drawing from letters, diaries, previously unstudied records of official hearings, railway timetables, and obscure shipping manifests, Higham has woven a spellbinding account of intrigue. He proves conclusively that high-level figures, including those in government and trade, were involved in the murder plot, and not John Wilkes Booth alone.

Higham shows for the first time that Lincoln unwittingly sealed his own doom. By allowing trading with the South in contradiction of his own laws, he enriched a circle of powerful people who, once he had outlived his usefulness and handed over the arrangements to others, marked him very quickly for assassination.