Stealing Lincoln’s Body

The author of Stealing Lincoln’s Body will be the featured speaker at the Remembrance Day Ceremonies on Saturday, November 10, at 11 a.m., at the New Hampshire Historical Society’s Tuck Hall, 30 Park Street in Concord.

Author and historian Thomas J. Craughwell’s latest book, Stealing Lincoln’s Body, is the story of a gang of Chicago criminals who tried to steal President Lincoln’s body in the 19th Century from its crypt in the Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, so they could ransom it for cash and the freedom of an imprisoned gang boss.

Remembrance Day is the 144th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s delivery of his Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the National Soldiers’ Cemetery in 1863, and the ceremonies in New Hampshire are jointly sponsored by the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, their Ladies Auxiliary and the New Hampshire Historical Society.

Mr. Craughwell grew up in Chicago, and during a family outing to see Lincoln’s tomb in the 1960's, the author’s father, Ambrose Craughwell, told him how crooks had tried to steal the sixteenth president’s body. "I wouldn’t have written the book, if my Dad hadn’t told me the story," Mr. Craughwell said.

Living history re-enactor, Steve Wood of Claremont, will also attend the Remembrance Day Ceremonies as President Abraham Lincoln. A squad of blue-suited Union Soldiers will escort President Lincoln into the Tuck Hall where he will reprise his Gettysburg Address.
The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War and their Ladies Auxiliary work to
memorialize the Union Veterans and to protect and to preserve the monuments and grave markers of the Union Veterans.
Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War,New Hampshire Department