Shooting Lincoln

Their long rivalry climaxed with the spilled blood of an American president. Mathew Brady, nearly blind and hoping to rekindle his artistic photographic magic, competed against his former understudy, Alexander Gardner, to record the epic moments of President Abraham Lincoln's death; the hunt for his murderer, John Wilkes Booth; and the execution of the men and women who conspired with Booth to cripple the United States government. The two photographers rushed to the theater where Lincoln was slain, to the gallows where the conspirators were hanged, and to the autopsy table where Booth was identified, hoping to capture the iconic images of their times . . . and to emerge as the nation's unrivaled master of the new media.

Shooting Lincoln tells the heart-pounding story of their race for lasting camera-lens glory-and shows how, at the end of the Civil War, photography had become the photojournalism that would our change culture forever. Brady and Gardner took some of the most memorable images ever recorded in history, invented a new media industry, and became the fathers of modern media, unlocking the passion of Americans for close-up views of history as it happened.

“" Shooting Lincoln is a fascinating look at a war within a war, when two rival photographers battled to chronicle the Civil War. Nicholas Pistor's gripping saga carries the reader onto battlefields and alongside the hangman's noose while chronicling the birth of modern photojournalism. A fascinating read that sharpens our focus on how much that war remains relevant today."-- Scott McGaugh , author of the New York Times bestseller Surgeon in Blue: Jonathan Letterman, the Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care”

"Shooting Lincoln is a fascinating look at a war within a war, when two rival photographers battled to chronicle the Civil War. Nicholas Pistor's gripping saga carries the reader onto battlefields and alongside the hangman's noose while chronicling the birth of modern photojournalism. A fascinating read that sharpens our focus on how much that war remains relevant today."--Scott McGaugh, author of the New York Times bestseller Surgeon in Blue: Jonathan Letterman, the Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care

"A gripping read...[written with] urgency and flair."--Wall Street Journal
"A remarkable history of Civil War era journalism."--Midwest Book Review
"An engaging read."--Washington Independent Review of Books
"Nicholas Pistor has written an engaging account of Civil War-era photographers Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner and the birth of American news photography. Pistor's riveting narrative of Abraham Lincoln's assassination and its aftermath is by itself well worth the read."--Joseph Wheelan, author of Terrible Swift Sword and Their Last Full Measure

"Pistor makes a convincing case that the efforts of Brady and Gardner consciously and often heroically documented history."--Santa Fe New Mexican

Nicholas Pistor is a reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and a former consultant for CBS's 48 Hours true-crime series. He's appeared on nearly every major television news network, including NBC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN. His first book, The Ax Murders of Saxtown: The Unsolved Crime That Terrorized a Town and Shocked a Nation, was cited by the Kansas City Star as one of its "Best Books of 2014." Pistor lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Their long rivalry climaxed with the spilled blood of an American president. Mathew Brady, nearly blind and hoping to rekindle his artistic photographic magic, competed against his former understudy, Alexander Gardner, to record the epic moments of President Abraham Lincoln's death; the hunt for his murderer, John Wilkes Booth; and the execution of the men and women who conspired with Booth to cripple the United States government. The two photographers rushed to the theater where Lincoln was slain, to the gallows where the conspirators were hanged, and to the autopsy table where Booth was identified, hoping to capture the iconic images of their times . . . and to emerge as the nation's unrivaled master of the new media. Shooting Lincoln tells the heart-pounding story of their race for lasting camera-lens glory-and shows how, at the end of the Civil War, photography had become the photojournalism that would our change culture forever. Brady and Gardner took some of the most memorable images ever recorded in history, invented a new media industry, and became the fathers of modern media, unlocking the passion of Americans for close-up views of history as it happened.

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