Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln

by William A. Tidwell, James O. Hall, David Winfred Gaddy

Many Confederates believed that Abraham Lincoln himself was the sponsor of the Union army's heavy destruction of the South. With John Wilkes Booth as its agent, the Confederate Secret Service devised a plan of retribution―to seize President Lincoln, hold him hostage, and bring the war-weary North to capitulation. The code word for this stratagem was “Come Retribution.”

But when Booth was stymied, the Secret Service took another course. They conspired to bomb the White House during a conference of senior Union officials. But this plot also failed. Next, the Confederates devised for Confederate forces to abandon Richmond and Petersburg and to link up with General Joseph E. Johnston in the South before General Grant's forces were prepared to move. This plan was thwarted, however, when Grant took Richmond. By April 9, 1865, Lee was forced to surrender.

Yet the willful, ardent Booth, smarting from the South's loss of the war, took decisive action at Ford's Theater during that spring night in 1865.

Investigating the assassination from their perspective as career intelligence officers, William A. Tidwell and David Winfred Gaddy, joined by James O. Hall, one of the leading authorities on the assassination, find and follow the clues, interpret the clandestine evidence, and draw well-founded conclusions. They are the first to explore the Confederate Secret Service's link to the death of Lincoln. In Come Retribution , they offer startling insights and give a new direction to the well-known and often-told story of Lincoln and Booth.

“The facts presented and the inferences drawn are provocative,” said Nathan Miller in The Baltimore Sun . “Every account of the Lincoln assassination published in the future will have to take account of the arguments presented in this book.”

Genres: History, Civil War

510 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1988

Reviews

[Hibberd Kline III · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a former Marine Corps intelligence officer I was fascinated and highly impressed by this book. The history of Confederate clandestine operations is not well documented for obvious reasons. Tidwell, Hall and Gaddy do a superb job of approaching the subject as intelligence officers, identifying the known and making educated deductions that produce a believable assessment of how the Service was organized, how it operated, and how the ultimate operation to capture Lincoln changed into a kill mission on local initiative. Their scenario has the ring of truth and I find it entirely believable. I recommend this book to all War Between the States enthusiasts and to all those involved in or interested the art of intelligence and clandestine operations.

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heavy in detailed research. Focused highly on the Confederate Signal Corps snd John Wilkes’ role.

[Melissa]

Linda

[David Wardell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considerable new research when published, and the source for other historical works on the same theme. Extensive documentation, but suffers from the common failing of many historical works, in that it allows many sources of unequal worth into the narrative without critical assessment.

The reading is enjoyable, but before the book is done you'll be wondering where the broad assessments of motives and strategy come from.

You'll also wonder why the writers believe they know more about the end of the war than some of the participants did. One example is General Grant, who is quoted occasionally but who also didn't sustain most of the book's key premises.