The Assassination Letters

In June 2005, two small envelopes were found in a closet in a Vermont historical site. One of the envelopes was official Treasury Department stationary and inscribed: “valuable letter account of the trial after the assassination of Lincoln.” Inside were three letters dated April 18, May 20, and June 15, 1865, containing eyewitness accounts of life in Washington, D.C., after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Here’s the story of those letters, of the man who wrote them, and of the confusion, despair, and anger that shook the nation’s capitol in the wake of Lincoln’s death.