I read a book a few years back called Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. Vowell tells the story of her pilgrimages to important locations that defined the Garfield, McKinley and Lincoln’s assassinations. She travels to homes, museums, historical markers, graves and other important sites relevant to the presidents and the assassins. Vowell explains their history, importance and context. The book relies heavily on the Lincoln assassination and the tone is sometimes conceited and the author tends to ramble. The book is worth the read especially for those interested in history and travel. The book is a 3.8/5 but gave me the idea of historical tourism.
I looked into John Wilkes Booth and found CivilWarTrails.org and a pdf titled John Wilkes Booth: Escape Of An Assassin (https://www.civilwartrails.org/docs/JWB-map-book.pdf). It provides a 90 mile trip along the path that Wilkes took prior, during and after his shooting Lincoln at the Ford Theater in DC. There is a brief history which gives context to the trail.
In the pdf, there is a reference to an app for Maryland Civil War Trails. I downloaded it and was pleasantly surprised with the layout and information. The only drawback was that the sites for shopping, lodging, dining, events and so forth do not have the state. I realize that Maryland is in the title, however, not all the locations for this particular app are in Maryland. I did find that there is a way to sort by location which provides miles from your current location. Also, not all the categories have information such as events. Along with this trail there are several others including Gettysburg, Antietam, and the Baltimore riot.
The website offers even more information and has trails for Virginia, Tennessee, West Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, and Virginia/Maryland. There is an interactive map which outlines the different Civil War trails in green. There is no legend for the interactive map. I found one in the Freedom Trail brochure.
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