While JFK’s death is much easier to find conspiracy theories about, I have found a book that at least introduces the topic of conspiracies that surrounded Lincoln’s assassination– Killing the President, by Oliver and Marion.
There are only two paragraphs in the chapter about Lincoln that talk about conspiracy, but it’s understandable, considering the book covers 15 assassinations and assassination attempts in U.S. history. I’ll just need a more specifically Lincoln-based book if I want to go in this direction, or I may just compare JFK to some of the other assassinations/attempts in this book.
The two paragraphs mention two conspiracies having to do with Lincoln’s killer– John Wilkes Boothe– as well as an unrelated conspiracy dealing with the kidnapping of the President’s body.
The first theory is that Booth was simply a puppet. Someone much higher up in command on the Confederate side must have been behind the murder, people thought. Jefferson Davis was usually considered to be this person, though no mention of proof of this is made. The second theory was that the man captured in Virginia and killed by soldiers in their attempt was never Booth. It was an “innocent bystander who was substituted for Lincoln’s killer”. People claimed to see Booth in later years as far away as Europe, which substantiated this claim for some.
The third conspiracy was not really to do with Lincoln’s death. It was a plot by counterfeiters in Chicago in 1876 to kidnap the President’s corpse and hold it for ransom until certain demands of theirs were met. Luckily this plot was stopped by the Secret Service before it could culminate.
So, in this book at least, two conspiracies surrounding Lincoln’s death are mentioned, but the author doesn’t make that big of a deal about them. The explanations take up less than half a page, if you include the third one. So were the conspiracies behind Lincoln’s death never really a big deal, or do these particular authors downplay it because readers no longer care?
(In comparison: the John F. Kennedy chapter has about three pages focusing on possible conspiracies. Lincoln’s chapter is approximately 20 pages. John F. Kennedy’s is about 17.)
Oliver, Willard M., and Nancy E. Marion. Killing the President: Assassinations, Attempts, and Rumored Attempts on U.S. Commanders-in-chief. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010. Print.