Stealing the President's Body

Stealing Lincoln's body has been a topic on many people's minds since 1865 (year of his death). President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in 1865 by a gunshot to the head. Since then he has been a topic of interest for many people. What is little known is the scheme to steal the president's dead body in 1876. The plan was to steal the body from its tomb and take it to the Indiana dunes so that the state of Illinois would pay a $200,000.00 ransom for the body. The plan didn't work due to several reasons. One reason was that the tomb robbers were already suspects of other crimes such as counterfeiting, and they had been bragging to be the "boss body snatchers of Chicago." After they had tipped off the police and some burglars the trip to Springfield was made. Since there was no security other than a lock at the site they thought it'd be easy, but they were caught. They all ran to the worst place they could've gone to, The Hub, where they were arrested for the crime some days later. Now this plan didn't work, but there is a book by Thomas J. Craughwell to be released giving the details to this national robbery.