Presentation to the
Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia 
at the Fort Myer Officers' Club in Arlington, VA
on September 11, 2018

A PDF of the images related to his presentation is available at
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16-KWVQeO2O7ITWfZhl7Nw9j84CrPiG_j/view?usp=sharing

About the Topic
April 14, 1865. A famous actor pulls a trigger in the presidential balcony, leaps to the stage and escapes, as the president lies fatally wounded. In the panic that follows, forty-six terrified people scatter in and around Ford’s Theater as soldiers take up stations by the doors and the audience surges into the streets chanting, “Burn the place down!”

This is the untold story of Lincoln’s assassination: the forty-six stage hands, actors, and theater workers on hand for the bewildering events in the theater that night, and what each of them witnessed in the chaos-streaked hours before John Wilkes Booth was discovered to be the culprit. In Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination, historian Thomas A. Bogar delves into previously unpublished sources to tell the story of Lincoln’s assassination from behind the curtain.

And the tale is shocking. Police rounded up and arrested dozens of innocent people, wasting time that allowed the real culprit to get further away. Some closely connected to John Wilkes Booth were not even questioned, while innocent witnesses were relentlessly pursued.

Booth was more connected with the production than you might have known; find out about how he knew each member of the cast and crew, which was a hotbed of secessionist resentment.

Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination also tells the story of what happened to each of these witnesses after the investigation was over—how each one lived their lives after seeing one of America’s greatest presidents shot dead without warning.

Mr. Bogar discusses how Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination is an exquisitely detailed look at this famous event from an entirely new angle. 

Adapted from amazon.com.

About the Speaker:
Thomas A. Bogar has taught theatre history, dramatic literature, and theatrical production for forty years—most recently at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland—and has directed over seventy theatrical productions. He holds a Ph.D. in theatre history/literature/criticism from Louisiana State University, an M.A. in play directing, and a B.A. in educational theatre, both from the University of Maryland.


In addition to Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination: The Untold Story of the Actors and Stagehands at Ford's Theatre (Regnery History 2013), Mr. Bogar is the author of American Presidents Attend the Theatre: The Playgoing Experiences of Each Chief Executive and John E. Owens: Nineteenth Century American Actor and Manager (McFarland, 2002), a biography of a 19th-century actor-manager.  His writing has also appeared in Washington History, Maryland Historical Magazine, Teaching Theatre, and Music Educators Journal.

Mr. Bogar is currently completing his next book, scheduled to be released this winter, entitled: Thomas Hamblin and the Bowery Theatre: The New York Reign of "Blood and Thunder" Melodramas. 

For more information about Mr. Bogar, visit his website at:  http://thomasabogar.com/index.html

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