Dixon High grad’s latest book about little-known Lincoln conspirator

Bob O’Connor, a 1963 Dixon High grad now of Charles Town, West Virginia, loves to write about virtually unknown characters from the American Civil War, and his 19th book is no exception.

“Veil of Secrecy – Mrs. Slater – The Missing Lincoln Conspirator” is about Sarah Slater, who is “unknown to even the most astute Civil War buff,” but is mentioned often in the transcripts of the Lincoln conspiracy trials and in the later trial of John Surratt, O’Connor said in a news release announcing the new book.

Slater, an aspiring actress, spent time with John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre and was a friend John Harrison Surratt Jr., one of the conspirators. She had a short encounter with George Atzerodt, another conspirator, and conversed with and stayed overnight at Mary Surratt’s boarding house. Surratt was the only woman hanged in the conspiracy.

Slater carried dispatches between high Confederate government officials in Richmond, Virginia and the Confederate Secret Service at the St. Lawrence Hall Hotel in Montreal, hiding them in a secret pocket under her dress, the release said.

Slater always wore a mourning veil to cover her face, and so witnesses at the trials could not identify her, but eventually she was found and questioned by the War Department, to no avail.

“Their questions came from second-hand sources. The information got scrambled to the point that the investigation turned up absolutely nothing of interest. She was set free,” O’Connor said.

The book, narrated by Slater, is historical fiction, but mostly true, written using primary source research conducted by O’Connor, who four times has been a finalist in a national book competition, and who has spoken or attended events more than 1,000 times in 26 states and the District of Columbia since his first book was published in 2006.

“Veil of Secrecy” is available at www.boboconnorbooks.com or at Amazon.com for $16.95.