Booth's Original Plan

hey, all. while going over this thread again, a thought occurred to me: what if, entirely due to butterflies, events take place in which Lincoln is not killed and is instead kidnapped and made a Confederate prisoner with the intention of being returned when the exchange of POWs resumes?

now, here's one thing that occurred to me: what if, in the period after Lincoln is abducted, the war ends. this leaves Lincoln in a potentially very dangerous situation: the Confederacy is defeated, but a given Southerner (soldier, general, etc.) is now in the position to get one last bit of revenge on the North by straight up murdering Lincoln, a prisoner with no way of escaping from them. obviously, doing so would have huge repercussions on the former CSA: not only would that particular man and probably his entire family become pariahs for the rest of American history for killing the president after the war ends (almost assuredly in favor of the Union) but Lincoln is also a prisoner, not someone who's in any position to try to negotiate or escape or fight back. and in this case, it would be an actual Confederate as opposed to a Southern sympathizer like Booth, so this could conceivably mean that the outcome is even worse for the South

so, yeah, if Lincoln was taken prisoner, what would the likely outcome be? keep in mind that the earliest time that this would likely happen would be March of 1864, when Grant decided to suspend the exchange of POWs between the Union and Confederate camps, which is apparently around the time that Booth came up with the plan. would he be returned mostly without incident following the war, or would an angry Southerner decide to fuck everything up by killing Lincoln after the war ends?

perhaps more importantly, were there any situations where Booth and his group would have the chance to do this?
 
hey, all. while going over this thread again, a thought occurred to me: what if, entirely due to butterflies, events take place in which Lincoln is not killed and is instead kidnapped and made a Confederate prisoner with the intention of being returned when the exchange of POWs resumes?

now, here's one thing that occurred to me: what if, in the period after Lincoln is abducted, the war ends. this leaves Lincoln in a potentially very dangerous situation: the Confederacy is defeated, but a given Southerner (soldier, general, etc.) is now in the position to get one last bit of revenge on the North by straight up murdering Lincoln, a prisoner with no way of escaping from them. obviously, doing so would have huge repercussions on the former CSA: not only would that particular man and probably his entire family become pariahs for the rest of American history for killing the president after the war ends (almost assuredly in favor of the Union) but Lincoln is also a prisoner, not someone who's in any position to try to negotiate or escape or fight back. and in this case, it would be an actual Confederate as opposed to a Southern sympathizer like Booth, so this could conceivably mean that the outcome is even worse for the South

so, yeah, if Lincoln was taken prisoner, what would the likely outcome be? keep in mind that the earliest time that this would likely happen would be March of 1864, when Grant decided to suspend the exchange of POWs between the Union and Confederate camps, which is apparently around the time that Booth came up with the plan. would he be returned mostly without incident following the war, or would an angry Southerner decide to fuck everything up by killing Lincoln after the war ends?

perhaps more importantly, were there any situations where Booth and his group would have the chance to do this?
I'd like to know this as well but good luck getting anyone on this site to talk about it. I've already posted two threads on this subject but no one ever bothered to analyze the situation at all. Why? I don't know.
 
d'you have links to those threads, if you got any replies? and do you have any of your own input?
 
Sorry it took me a while to respond. Here are the links to my previous attempts to get people to talk about this scenario. I sorry but I don't have any input except that I can tell you there is a book written by an author who analyzed this scenario. I haven't read it though. It’s somewhat humorously titled Notes on My Recent Abduction by A. Lincoln: A Narrative Account of the John Wilkes Booth Plot to Kidnap President Lincoln. Good luck if want to include this in a TL and please share any ideas that you have with me.
 
i figured i'd just bump my own thread for this. while looking over a summary of the background to the assassination, i found this:
On March 17, 1865, Booth informed his conspirators that Lincoln would be attending a play, Still Waters Run Deep, at Campbell Military Hospital. He assembled his men in a restaurant at the edge of town, intending that they should soon join him on a nearby stretch of road in order to capture the President on his way back from the hospital. But Booth found out that Lincoln had not gone to the play after all. Instead, he had attended a ceremony at the National Hotel in which officers of the 142nd Indiana Infantry presented Governor Oliver Morton with a captured Confederate battle flag.[7] Booth was living at the National Hotel at the time and could have had an opportunity to kill Lincoln had Booth not been at the hospital.[8][9]
basically, what if Lincoln either attended the play at the hospital and been captured on the way back, or if he was killed just a few weeks before the collapse of the Confederacy?
 
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