Bloody Times by James L. Swanson

Bloody Times by James L. Swanson tells the true story of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and his 1,600 mile funeral procession and the subsequent manhunt for the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis. This is a young people's adaptation of Swanson's adult book, Bloody Crimes. The book goes back and forth between Lincoln's story and Davis's story, showing common threads between two men who were seemingly completely different.

I really enjoyed this book, mostly because I didn't know a lot about what happened after Lincoln's assassination and I didn't know much of anything about Jefferson Davis. I was surprised to learn about the train ride Lincoln's body took, visiting city after city and mourner after mourner, before being delivered from Washington D.C. to his hometown of Springfield, IL. I was equally surprised to learn Jefferson Davis's story, especially the descriptions of his character and the fallacies about him that remain to this day. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys history and nonfiction.