When Lincoln was assassinated, it was assumed that Confederate president Jefferson Davis was the mastermind. Swanson recounts the hunt for Davis even as Lincoln's body was borne to its resting place. Manhunt, Swanson's account of the assassination itself, was a huge best seller-and it's slated for an eight-part HBO miniseries. This will be big, too. With a one-day laydown on April 4 and a 250,000-copy first printing; seven-city tour.


Two weeks later, President Lincoln was assassinated, and the nation was convinced that Davis was involved in the conspiracy that led to the crime. Lincoln's murder, autopsy, and White House funeral transfixed the nation. His final journey began when soldiers placed his corpse aboard a special train that would carry him home on the 1,600-mile trip to Springfield. Along the way, more than a million Americans looked upon their martyr's face, and several million watched the funeral train roll by. It was the largest and most magnificent funeral pageant in American history.

To the Union, Davis was no longer merely a traitor. He became a murderer, a wanted man with a $100,000 bounty on his head. Davis was hunted down and placed in captivity, the beginning of an intense and dramatic odyssey that would transform him into a martyr of the South's Lost Cause.
