Thomas A. Jones

“His part was the grandest of any that was played.”—Detective William Williams. This Thomas A. Jones work fills in many unknown aspects of the Booth-Herold escape account first exposed a century and a quarter ago. In late April 1865, journals coast to coast ran headlines about the assassins’ flight following Lincoln’s murder. And for decades following the United States press and authors end on end embellished and looked for new sensational angles to this story. Interest in this pivotal event continues to this day. In the Washington, D.C., area, a harbinger of spring each year is the hosted bus expedition along the Booth-Herold pathway through Southern Maryland. This Jones-Booth book gives as detailed an account as could be crafted from ten years of research of the Jones family, Charles County, Maryland, State and Federal Government primary and secondary resources. Southern Maryland pro-confederacy leanings are an important part of the Jones contributions to the Southern cause. He never could have acted alone and successfully without much support from all levels of Southern Maryland society...as indicated in this fascinating tale. And “Tom Jones” was thought by Federal authorities in early 1862 to be an “extremely dangerous” Confederate agent appointed by Richmond to be the South’s top secret service agent in Maryland. The complete 1893 book authored by Jones entitled J. Wilkes Booth: An Account of His Sojourn in Southern Maryland after the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his Passage Across the Potomac, and his Death in Virginia, vintage photographs, illustrations, maps, and a bibliography enhance the text.