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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.7092
EAN num: 9780674024588
ISBN number: 0674024583
Label: Belknap Press
Manufacturer: Belknap Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 288
Printing Date: April 15, 2007
Publishing house: Belknap Press
Sale Popularity Level: 48067
Studio: Belknap Press
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
On the night of the presidential election in 1876, a gang of counterfeiters out of Chicago attempted to steal the entombed embalmed body of Abraham Lincoln and hold it for ransom. The custodian of the tomb was so shaken by the incident that he willingly dedicated the rest of his life to protecting the president's corpse.
In a lively and dramatic narrative, Thomas J. Craughwell returns to this bizarre, and largely forgotten, event with the very first book to place the grave robbery in historical context. He takes us through the planning and execution of the crime and the outcome of the investigation. He describes the reactions of Mary Todd Lincoln and Robert Todd Lincoln to the theft—and the peculiar silence of a nation. He follows the unlikely tale of what happened to Lincoln's remains after the attempted robbery, and details the plan devised by the Lincoln Guard of Honor to prevent a similar abominable recurrence.
Along the way, Craughwell offers entertaining sidelights on the rise of counterfeiting in America and the establishment of the Secret Service to combat it; the prevalence of grave robberies; the art of nineteenth-century embalming; and the emergence among Irish immigrants of an ambitious middle class—and a criminal underclass.
This rousing story of hapless con men, intrepid federal agents, and ordinary Springfield citizens who honored their native son by keeping a valuable, burdensome secret for decades offers a riveting glimpse into late-nineteenth-century America, and underscores that truth really is sometimes stranger than fiction.
(20070215)
Amazon.com Review:
Amazon Significant Seven, April 2007: Thomas Craughwell exhumes a fascinating and bizarre Lincoln tale that you didn't hear in school: The plot hatched by a group of Chicago counterfeiters to steal Honest Abe's remains and ransom them for $200,000 and the release of an imprisoned cohort. Though ultimately unsuccessful, the brazen scheme launched The First Cadaver on a peripatetic 25-year journey to its final, concrete-encased resting place. Along the way, Stealing Lincoln's Body detours into the story of rampant counterfeiting prior to and through the Civil War that nearly bankrupted the U.S. treasury, the scoundrelly origins of the Secret Service, and some of the stranger embalming techniques of 19th-century America. --Jon Foro
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Rated by buyers -
The very first half of this book was a bit of a rough start because of what I found to be initially overly simplistic writing (I doubled checked to see if this was a book for young adults) and the somewhat awkward introductions of major themes and bumpy segues between supporting material. For example, author Craughwell's initial references to the Secret Service and Operatives (Secret Service agents) come out of nowhere, without a proper build up to the agency or its staff. In addition, weaving of the supporting dramas and history around the endeavor to steal Lincolns body - the role of counterfeiters; the development of embalming techniques - is not handled well, and I felt as if I was reading a separate tract on those two subjects, rather than supporting material for the main drama. Until about half-way through the book, it seemed as if all this information was filler to push the work beyond 200 pages.
Fortunatly for the reader, the pace and coherence of the writing picks up, as Craughwell exhibits greater skills in weaving the various threads of the history together, as he brings the numerous players to center stage - the plot conspirators and the law enforcement officials who pursued them; the Lincoln family, particularly Lincoln's wife Mary and their son Robert; the lawyers and other players in the courtroom drama; the caretaker of Lincoln's monument in Springfield, Illinois. Craughwell's second half comeback, so to speak, leaves the reader with a satisfying sense of having learned about the plot to steal Lincoln's body, the efforts to prevent future attempts, the role of the various individuals involved, and the historical context in which the events occurred. The book is a great supplement for Lincoln history buffs.
Rated by buyers 
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Loved this book. Well researched. I was aware of most of the facts regarding the conspiracy to steal Lincoln's body, yet Mr. Craughwell introduced many more trivia of the whole story which I found fascinating.
Good Read.
Rated by buyers -
If history is a mighty river, this book is about one of the smaller eddies. Books of this type can be great fun and provide a view that you seldom see. We all know the story of Lincoln's murder, state funeral and the train to Springfield. What we do not know is the story of Lincoln's body, how Springfield tried to capitalize on it and how it came to a final resting place.
Along the way, the author treats us to a short history of the Secret Service, Counterfeiting, Lincoln's wife and son. This is included in a look at the underworld in Illinois, manners and morals. These little side trips place the main story in the larger picture providing a more complete story.
The main story is what happened to Lincoln's body from 1865 to 1901. The endeavor to steal the body, while important, is only part of the story. Springfield's attempts to make a tourist attraction and Mary Lincoln's plans collide at once. Robert Lincoln is detached but involved making him a question mark for history. Lincoln's associates, Springfield's leading citizens, members of the underworld, fear, greed and respect all combine in history that reads like a novel.
This is an easy and fun read. The author has a very readable style that can move from subject to subject with few problems. He has the ability to produce word portraits of the people that make them understandable. This is well worth reading for Civil War buffs, Lincoln admirers and those that enjoy history.
Rated by buyers -
You can tell by the title that this is going to be a weird book, especially since it's nonfiction. Thomas Craughwell does a great job of telling the story of the man who not once, but twice, tried to steal President Abraham Lincoln's body and hold it for ransom.
The book was a smooth read and interesting. However, I think Craughwell might have padded it a bit with history that wasn't directly related to the story. While I found the history of U.S. counterfeiting interesting, it distracted from the story.
It's an unusual story that you will enjoy reading, though. I hope Craughwell comes up with another story just as good.
Rated by buyers -
Bungling thieves who fail in an attempted heist, and bungling cops who eventually catch them, might seem to be improbable subjects for a detailed book on the whole botched affair. There is no lack of interesting detail, however, in _Stealing Lincoln's Body_ (Belknap / Harvard). Thomas J. Craughwell has illuminated a bizarre crime, and has also cast light on many subjects that would seem unconnected to it but all of which are brought in to play their parts. The crime itself was a petty affair, not just a failure; it was hardly even begun before it was halted. Craughwell's spirited story, however, takes in the history of counterfeiting and embalming in America, grave robbing, the founding of the Secret Service, the rural cemetery movement, the Pullman strikes, and much more. It is a tribute to Craughwell's narrative skill that this story of a small, ghoulish, thwarted crime can hold all the digressions and show how the diverse themes are all connected.
Craughwell's story starts with Lincoln's death. Even if there had been no grave-robbing, Lincoln's was among the best travelled and most fussed-over of cadavers, so there is a description of the history of embalming here, and of the body's travels to Springfield, Illinois. Then Craughwell gives us the history of American counterfeiting, an activity that was busily pursued long before we had our own currency. The reason that this is a justifiable digression in the story is that it was counterfeiters that plotted the theft of Lincoln's corpse, and the Secret Service that took charge of bringing them in. A big crook hired minor crooks for the job of getting Lincoln's corpse for ransom, and they took on a small-time crook to help them in their effort, only he was a stool-pigeon for the Secret Service which had been put on alert after the very first conspirators fled. Thus, on election day in 1876, the conspirators took the tour of the Lincoln mausoleum, with the custodian fully aware of who they were and why they were there. They returned that night, ill-equipped to saw through the one padlock that secured the place, and when they finally got in and broke into the sarcophagus, they found the lead and cedar coffin too heavy to carry. They were relieved from having to do so by the Secret Service which was lying in wait for them in stocking feet so that their footsteps didn't echo in the tomb chamber. Unfortunately, one of the detectives accidentally fired his pistol, alerting the would-be grave robbers who got away. This left the lawmen nothing to do but engage in a futile hunt within the cemetery, and along the way mistakenly shoot at each other, with aim fortunately as bad as the rest of their night's doings. No one was hurt.
The perpetrators were eventually caught and imprisoned in Joliet prison. The wild story of the attempted theft in the graveyard was buried beneath the bigger story of the attempted theft (by both Republicans and Democrats) of the Tilden / Hayes election. Also, the story of the tomb robbers was simply too incredible for the public to believe. Lincoln's body did not rest easily for some further decades. The custodians within the secret fraternal organization the Lincoln Guard of Honor decided to keep it safe by secretly burying it in the basement of the mausoleum, allowing tourists to continue to be moved by viewing an empty sarcophagus. (Rumors flew around Springfield that the tomb was empty.) Mary Todd Lincoln joined him there after her death in 1882. The custodians opened the coffin in 1887 to make sure it was really Lincoln in there and then reburied it. There was a final reburial in 1901, and the style of reburial was borrowed from that of George Pullman, who because of his relations with labor at his company was one of the most despised men in America and who fretted that his own grave would be robbed. The Lincolns, with the blessing of their son Robert, were encased in lead, then in a cage of steel, and then in tons of cement. It's a good bet that they will rest in peace now, but the story does not quite end there. The sarcophagus that had previously held the body was being held for history's sake when the tomb was repaired in 1930. The sarcophagus was left outside, and was smashed to bits by vandals, parts of it carried off, possibly for souvenirs. Perhaps it was as close to robbing the graves as the vandals could get. Craughwell's wide-ranging, brightly written history puts this and other bizarre incidents into context. The story of Lincoln postmortem is surprisingly full of lively incidents and hilarious, macabre folly.
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