Stealing George Washington: The Heist That Shook the Library of Congress

In 1897, George Washington’s diary and other irreplaceable artifacts from the American Revolution were stolen from the Library of Congress, setting off an inquisition by the Secret Service and a sensational trial that threatened to unravel America’s national library.

In the late nineteenth century, the Congressional Library in the Capitol is bursting at the seams. Its chief librarian, Ainsworth Spofford, presides over a chaotic collection of books and documents spilling into alcoves and piled on desks, precariously illuminated by gaslight. For years, Spofford has been campaigning for a grand new building to house the nation’s rapidly growing collection. Now, as he fights to make that vision a reality, he is distracted from a crime unfolding in his own private office.

Two young clerks have been running a monthslong heist, quietly stockpiling and selling stolen pieces of American history. Then they come for the most treasured item of all: George Washington’s diary, handwritten during the creation of the Constitution. Its disappearance sets off a chase led by the Secret Service and exposes a shadowy world of collectors, dealers, and thieves trafficking in the nation’s most valuable historical documents. What follows is a headline-making trial that humiliates some of America’s most prominent collectors and threatens the reputation of a young institution still struggling to establish itself as the guardian of the nation’s history.

In Stealing George Washington, bestselling author and award-winning historian Daniel Stone brings this meticulously researched, propulsive story to life, revealing the extraordinary lengths people will go to possess a piece of a nation’s past.