The Peter Francisco Smith playscript "The Great Conspiracy"

Collection

Collection number: ahc.MSS810f

Scope and Content

This collection contains a playscript of an unpublished play titled "The Great Conspiracy" prepared by William Bailey Williford. The play describes the political tensions that led to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The script's main characters are Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, John Wilkes Booth, David Herold, and various local citizens, servants, soldiers, and spies. The climax takes place when Booth shoots Lincoln inside Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Dates

1955

Creator

Smith, Peter Francisco (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Reproduction and Use

Unpublished manuscripts are protected by copyright. All requests to publish, quote, or reproduce must be submitted through the Kenan Research Center.

Administrative/Biographical History

Peter Francisco Smith (1841?-1913) was born near Palmetto, Georgia, to John Hardaway Smith (1809-1874) and Mary Weaver Smith. He attended Emory University before joining the 7th Georgia Regiment, in which he served throughout the Civil War. After the war, he earned a law degree from the University of Virginia, where he helped establish the Alpha Tau Omega social fraternity and participated in collegiate debates. Smith practiced law in Newnan, Georgia, for fifteen years, and married his first wife, Elizabeth "Lizzy" May Hill (1856-1870) in 1874. They had one daughter, Lizzie May (1877-?). Smith married his second wife, Nancy "Nannie" Hobbs (1858-1938), in 1879 and they had three daughters: Ludie C. (1879-?); Lillian Jordan (1882-?); and Margarite Snelling (1891-?). In 1889 the family moved to Atlanta where Smith continued to practice law. He also became a real estate investor and an author, publishing in 1895 The Law and Principles of Evidence, and in 1902 Smith on the Use of Words and Phrases, and The Old Time Slave.