Moonlight: Abraham Lincoln and the Almanac Trial: Abraham Lincoln and the Almanac Trial

On August 29, 1857, in the light of a three-quarter moon, James Metzger was savagely beaten by two assailants in a grove not far from his home. Two days later he died and his assailants, James Norris and William Armstrong, were arrested and charged with his murder. Norris was tried and convicted first. As William Duff Armstrong waited for his trial, his own father died. James Armstrong's deathbed wish was that Duff's mother, Hannah, engage the best lawyer possible to defend Duff. The best person Hannah could think of was a friend, a young lawyer from Springfield by the name of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln took the case and with that begins one of the oddest journeys Lincoln took on his trek towards immortality. What really happened? How much did the moon reveal? What did Lincoln really know? Walsh makes a strong case for viewing Honest Abe in a different light in this tale of murder and moonlight.

Moonlight is a 2001 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Fact Crime.

Author: John Evangelist Walsh
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 06/03/2000
Pages: 192
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.76lbs
Size: 8.55h x 5.81w x 0.93d
ISBN: 9780312229221
Award: Edgar Allan Poe Awards - Nominee

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/22/2000 pg. 84
Kirkus Reviews 05/15/2000 pg. 706
Booklist 05/15/2000 pg. 1709
Library Journal 07/01/2000 pg. 116
Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2000 pg. 124
Publishers Weekly 05/15/2000

About the Author

John Evangelist Walsh is the author of more than a dozen books of history and biography, including Midnight Dreary: The Mysterios Death of Edgar Allen Poe; Unraveling Piltdown: The Science Fraud of the Century and Its Solution; and The Shadows Rise: Abraham Licoln and the Ann Rutledge Legend.