Civil War Round Table Meeting Explores Lincoln Assassination Through Expert
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John Kokkonen shows collection of images including a postcard circulated in the search for John Wilkes Booth and a check signed by Edwin Stanton, secretary of war in the Lincoln cabinet. Looking on is Keith Markstrom, Civil War Round Table member.
John Kokkonen a retired teacher, of Evart, Michigan, describes himself as "a student of history." His life illustrates the power of the Civil War to draw people into a literary and educational odyssey a century and a half into the past.
The story of John Kokkonen also provides an insight into the reason why the people of the Bay City area have responded so amazingly to
recent discoveries of burials of hundreds of Civil War veterans at Pine Ridge Cemetery and the heroism of a Bay Cityan, Capt. James G. Birney IV, at the Battle of Gettysburg. The movement resulted in a very successful fund-raising campaign which resulted in the acquisition of Birney's long-lost dress sword for the Bay County Historical Society and the founding of the 7th Michigan Cavalry Civil War Round Table.
Kokkonen is more than just a student of the Civil War. He is a scholar, having spent most of his life investigating the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
The Lincoln expert spoke to abouttwo dozen appreciative attendees of a recent meeting of the newly-formed 7th Michigan Cavalry Civil War Round Table at the appropriately-named Lincoln Center of Bay Regional Medical Center.
It was the second meeting of the new group, the first having featured local attorney Gerald Pergande, speaking on Bay City's own Gen. Benjamin Partridge, Civil War hero.
The next meeting will be Jan. 21, again at the Lincoln Center, with a speaker and topic yet to be determined, although it will definitely focus on an aspect of the Civil War. Keith Markstrom also announced that the second Civil War Dinner would be held in April 2004 under sponsorship of the Civil War Round Table.
Kokkonen led the audience on a wide-ranging tour of Lincoln sites across the nation, from the assassination site at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., along the escape trail of assassin John Wilkes Booth into Maryland and Virginia, and to Lincoln's tomb in Springfield, Illinois.
Kokkonen has visited all those places, even taking his wife to the tomb on their honeymoon and returning many years later with their son for a reprise of the journey.
A native of Minnesota, Kokkonen read a book, "The Man Who Shot Lincoln," at age 14. That began his lifetime of study on the subject, which naturally radiated into many aspects of the Civil War and American political history.
His dedication to the topic also resulted in his acquisition of one of the largest collections of books on the Lincoln assassination perhaps in the Midwest or the nation.
In one of the weirdest twists of history, an evolving case regarding the trials of Taliban members by a military tribunal instead of a civil court may have application to a long-standing debate about Dr. Samuel Mudd, accused of treason for treating Booth after Lincoln's shooting.
Dr. Mudd, whose descendants live in Saginaw, Michigan, also was tried by a military tribunal. The Mudd family has labored for years to clear his name, and a decision that the Taliban were tried in error by a military tribunal may result in Dr. Mudd being cleared by reason of governmental error.
Kokkonen said Dr. Mudd met Booth on several occasions but couldn't known that he had killed Lincoln when he arrived the night of April 15, 1865 at the Mudd farm in Maryland.
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