I Am Murdered: George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, and the Killing That Shocked a New Nation - Hardcover

by Bruce Chadwick (Author)

""A good story, well told, of a sliver of life in Richmond, a small, elite-driven capital city in the young nation's most influential state.""

--Publishers Weekly

George Wythe clung to the mahogany banister as he inched down the staircase of his comfortable Richmond, Virginia, home. Doubled over in agony, he stumbled to the kitchen in search of help. There he found his maid, Lydia Broadnax, and his young protegé, Michael Brown, who were also writhing in distress. Hours later, when help arrived, Wythe was quick to tell anyone who would listen, ""I am murdered."" Over the next two weeks, as Wythe suffered a long and painful death, insults would be added to his mortal injury.

I Am Murdered tells the bizarre true story of Wythe's death and the subsequent trial of his grandnephew and namesake, George Wythe Sweeney, for the crime--unquestionably the most sensational and talked-about court case of the era. Hinging on hit-and-miss forensics, the unreliability of medical autopsies, the prevalence of poisoning, race relations, slavery, and the law, Sweeney's trial serves as a window into early nineteenth- century America. Its particular focus is on Richmond, part elegant state capital and part chaotic boomtown riddled with vice, opportunism, and crime.

As Wythe lay dying, his doctors insisted that he had not been poisoned, and Sweeney had the nerve to beg him for bail money. In I Am Murdered, this signer of the Declaration of Independence, mentor to Thomas Jefferson, and ""Father of American Jurisprudence"" finally gets the justice he deserved.

Front Jacket

He signed the Declaration of Independence, represented Virginia at the Constitutional Convention, and became America's first professor of law. With his close friend and former pupil Thomas Jefferson, who once described him as a "second father," he wrote an entire new legal code for the State of Virginia. At the age of eighty in 1806, George Wythe was loved, admired, and respected by all who knew him--all but one, that is.

In I Am Murdered, celebrated historian Bruce Chadwick tells the grisly, fascinating, and often astounding tale of Wythe's murder and America's very first "trial of the century." Brimming with fascinating details of early nineteenth-century medicine, forensic science, and legal issues, this fast-moving account features compelling portraits of all major players in the case and asks penetrating questions about the many controversies that swirled around the trial.

George Wythe lived long enough to accuse his grandnephew George Wythe Sweeney of poisoning him and two other members of his household. Why did three prominent doctors, all friends of Wythe, insist that he hadn't been poisoned at all? Why did Wythe repeatedly refuse to press charges against Sweeney, who had forged Wythe's name on checks and stolen and sold many of his rare and precious books? Wythe's maid, Lydia Broadnax, the sole survivor of the poisoning, was also the only eyewitness to the crime. Her account was entirely credible, and she was widely recognized as an honest, reliable, and honorable woman. Why was she forbidden to testify at the trial?

The answers to these questions and many more become lenses through which to view a city and a nation at a crucial and formative period of their history.

Among the many distinctive figures you'll meet in this strange and chilling true story are the two attorneys who came to Sweeney's defense. Both had been good friends of Wythe and were certain of the young man's guilt, but each man had a powerful personal motive to work tirelessly for Sweeney's acquittal. One was a former attorney general of the United States, and the other was destined to become the longest-serving attorney general in American history.

Complete with a satisfying account of Wythe's ultimate revenge and a poignant depiction of his deep and abiding friendship with Jefferson, I Am Murdered is part American tragedy, part CSI circa 1806, and all intriguing examination of the unjust death of a Founding Father.

Author Biography

Bruce Chadwick is a historian of the American Revolution and colonial era whose books include George Washington's War, The General and Mrs. Washington, and The First American Army. He has also appeared on the History Channel.