Frank Crawford Talks About His New Book "In the Shadows of Lincoln"-- Part 3: William Duff Armstrong

Continued from September 15.  I will sure be glad when all these attacks on the Confederacy tone down as this is what I would really rather be doing.

Crawford has written two books and has them with him for sale at $20 each, a considerable savings over Amazon which is $35.

He chose twenty men who had something to do with the assassination and death of Lincoln.  Some had bigger roles, others smaller.  They did something heroic or significant and he extensively researched each one.  This is the kind of Civil War history I can really get into.

Crawford spent a lot of time talking about the problems of writing a book.  Very insightful.  But, back to the book, he wondered what happened to the soldier who let John Wilkes Booth and David Herold out of the city.   What happened to the man?  Who was he?.  Who was the man who fought off the attack on Seward that night and what happened to him.

And, who was the man standing under Mary Surratt when she was hanged?  This man had been wounded at Petersburg where he lost a finger.  He had recovered, but been placed on Veteran Reserve Corps and chosen to be a knocker at the hanging.

Then there was William Duff Armstrong and before the war Lincoln had gotten him off in the Almanac Trial.  That was in 1858.  According to Mr. Crawford, William Armstrong was a two-time Union deserter and the second time he was sentenced to hand, but his mother wrote a letter to Lincoln who interceded and got him discharged from the military.

--Old Secesh