Every American schoolchild learns the tragic story of the assassination, just as the long nightmare of the Civil War drew to a close, of President Abraham Lincoln. They know of the shot fired by John Wilkes Booth into the brain of the great President as he watched Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865. They know of Booth's dramatic leap from the presidential box to the stage, his cry as he ran of "Sic Semper Tyrannus!," his escape on horseback, and of his own death by bullet twelve days later in a burning Virginia barn. Far fewer Americans, however, know that Booth's evil deed was part of a larger conspiracy of Confederate sympathizers--a conspiracy whose targets included Vice President Johnson and Secretary of State Seward and which had as its goal destabilization of the entire federal government. Fewer Americans yet know the fascinating story of the trial of eight conspirators before a specially appointed military commission in Washington. [CONT.]