Abraham Lincoln was my Co-Author

Abraham Lincoln for the Defense is not just a mystery I wrote about Abraham Lincoln, it is also I mystery I wrote with Abraham Lincoln. I was sitting in the library reading the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln when I came across a letter he wrote to his best friend, Joshua Speed on June 19 of 1841 about the murder trial of Henry and William Trailor. Lincoln was one of the counsels for the defense. He told Speed about the “curious affair” and “mystery” that remained at the end of the trial. He laid out the timeline, the characters, the physical evidence, the testimony of witnesses at the trial, and the verdict. I considered the information for some time and reluctantly concluded that so much information was missing, that it was impossible to develop a credible story about what might have happened. At the end of the trial, even after the verdict, some people swore that Henry and William Trailor had committed bloody murder. Henry and William, on the other hand vehemently swore that they were innocent and argued that it could be that no crime at all had been committed. I could not tell, since Lincoln did not know, who had done what to whom.

I was quite disappointed. In 1841, Lincoln was the junior partner in a law firm with a much more famous senior partner. He was not well known. He had only been practicing law for a few years. He was a minor player in local politics. He had broken off his engagement to Mary Todd for unknown reasons. Historians still argue about why.

What I didn’t know was that Lincoln was not through with me yet. I continued to read the Collected Works intermittently and eventually came across an Editorial written on April 15, 1846 titled: The Trailor Murder Case Remarkable Case of Arrest for Murder. I thought - Trailor Murder Case. I’ve heard that name before. Sure enough, it was Lincoln’s reflections on the same case, five years later. By this time Lincoln knew, and spelled out who had done what to whom. But even knowing that only created a greater mystery about how and why the events transpired they way they did. In the editorial, Lincoln thoughtfully provided a long list of unanswered questions and concluded that no one would ever know the truth.

I realized that to create a credible story I would have to answer every question. But I knew if I could answer them, I would have a work based on a real trial conducted by Abraham Lincoln that so interested him that he thought and wrote about it for five years.

With a combination of luck, research and imagination I was able to answer every question in a believable way. I’ll never know if I got the right answers but I did end up with possible answers.

A final gift Mr. Lincoln gave me was advice about writing the novel. Keep in mind that, apart from his importance in politics, Lincoln was one of the greatest American writers of all time. I admit that I did not immediate recognize how valuable the advice was but Lincoln wrote in the editorial, “it is readily conceived that a writer of novels could bring the story to a more perfect climax.”

My first dozen or so attempts at an ending were just awful. A number of years and as Lincoln might say, “a myriad” of revisions later I realized how right he was. I finally went beyond the resolution of the case, which came weeks later than the end of the trial, retuned to the questions Mr. Lincoln had so considerately laid out for me and provided the reader with answers for each one.

I'd like to think that Lincoln would have approved of my speculations and bringing new attention to a case he described as "remarkable." The trade paperback version of "our" novel (now out of print) garnered six five-star reviews on Amazon.com. Of course Lincoln's account of his debates with Stephen A. Douglas during the election of 1858 for Senator from Illinois has never gone out of print.