University of Virginia Library

THE KILLING OF BOOTH IN CAROLINE

Many historians have stated that John Wilkes Booth killed
Abraham Lincoln to rid his country of a tyrant. But the south
was not his (Booth's) country for he was never at any time a
citizen or a resident of the Confederacy. The true motive of
the assassination was to avenge the death of Captain John Y.
Beall, Booth's bosom friend, whom he thought had been unjustly
executed.

Beall, a Virginian of good birth, liberal education, attractive
personality and remarkable courage, undertook a hazardous
enterprise on Lake Erie in the fall of 1864, and was captured and
sentenced to death as a pirate. Booth interested himself in
Beall's behalf, procured documents to prove that his friend was
a commissioned officer of the Confederate Navy, presented the
evidence to Lincoln, and secured from him the promise that
Beall should not be executed, but should be treated as a prisoner
of war. This promise gave offense to Secretary Seward, who
induced the President to sanction the execution and Beall was
hanged at Governor's Island on February 24, 1865.

Booth, immediately upon the execution of Beall, organized
a conspiracy for the assassination of both Lincoln and Seward,
and on April 14, 1865 seven weeks after the hanging of the gallant
Confederate captain, the plot was executed.

On April 24th, just ten days after the assassination, Booth
and Herold, his accomplice, entered Caroline, being ferried across
the Rappahannock river, from Port Conway to Port Royal, by
a negro fisherman named Rollins. On the same ferry boat were
three Confederate cavalrymen—Jett, Ruggles and Bainbridge—
and it is said that Booth sat on one of their horses while crossing
the river.

Three or four miles farther on Booth was left at the residence
of Richard H. Garrett, under the guise of a wounded Confederate
soldier by the name of Boyd, and Herold went on with the three
soldiers to the town of Bowling Green, thirteen miles distant.

The next day Herold came back to the Garrett farm and
joined Booth, and that same afternoon a troop of Federal cavalry
in search of the assassins passed the Garrett home (Booth lying
in the yard at the time) and aroused so much suspicion on the
part of Mr. Garrett that he urged the departure of his questionable
guests, who thereupon sought refuge in a woods back of the

plantation. After nightfall the assassins returned and pleaded
so earnestly for shelter that "Jack" Garrett, one of Mr. R. H.
Garrett's sons, consented that they might occupy a large tobacco
barn which stood near the house; but becoming apprenhensive
that the men might try to make off with his father's horses,
the son stationed himself in an adjacent corn-crib and remained
on watch that night.

The Garrett House, in Which John Wilkes Booth Died

The Federal cavalrymen came on to Bowling Green, where
they found Jett, one of the soldiers with whom Booth had
journeyed as far as Garrett's, and seizing him in bed at midnight,
they compelled him, at the point of a revolver, to guide them to
the Garrett plantation where Booth had been left the previous
day. The cavalrymen reached Mr. Garrett's home at 2:00 o'clock
Wednesday morning, April 26th, and demanded that he disclose
the whereabouts of the assassins. Mr. Garrett insisted that the
two strangers had gone to the woods, whereupon Lieutenant
Baker, thinking that he was being foiled in his effort to capture
the men, called for a rope to hang Mr. Garrett to one of the trees
on the lawn. To save his father, the son came forward and
pointed out the tobacco barn as the hiding place of the fugitives.
(Garrett's Testimony—Surratt Trial—page 302). The boy was
pushed inside the dark building by Lieutenant Baker, but was

ordered out by Booth who threatened to take his life. Baker
then called to Booth saying, "We have fifty armed men around
this barn, and unless you surrender we will set fire to the
building." Out of the darkness came the voice of Booth, saying,
"Captain, give a lame man a chance. Draw your men up before
the door and I will come out and fight the whole command."
Baker replied to this challenge saying, "We came to arrest
you, not to fight you," to which the voice in the darkness responded,
"Well then, my brave boys, you may prepare a stretcher
for me."

Herold broke under the strain and surrendered his arms,
and was pulled out empty-handed and turned over to one Doherty,
one of the cavalrymen, who tied him to a tree. Conger, another
member of the troop, then set fire to the barn, and, as the flames
lit up the interior, Baker caught sight of Booth as he was about
to make his exit. He had just arisen from his bed of straw, with
a crutch under his left arm and a carbine in his right hand, and
was in the act of starting toward the fire. He caught up an old
table as if to smother out the blaze, but, looking up he saw the
flames mounting to the rafters. "Then," Baker relates, "he
seemed to abandon hope, and his countenance fell. Dropping
his crutch and passing the carbine to his left hand, with a kind of
limping, halting, jump, he advanced toward the door where
Baker, unseen by him, was awaiting his approach. When within
about twelve feet of the door he paused for a moment, as if trying
to make some decision, when a shot rang out, and, with an upward
spring, Booth fell on his back, a ball having passed entirely through
his neck.

Baker was upon the fallen man in an instant, wrenching the
revolver from his clenched hand. Garrett next entered the barn
calling for help to put out the fire. Conger rushed in, exclaiming,
"he shot himself," to which Baker replied, "He did not,
you shot him." Conger rejoined, "I did not," and Baker
persisted in saying, "He did not shoot himself, for I saw him
the whole time; and the man who shot him goes back to Washington
under arrest."

The fire continued to gain headway, and the apparently lifeless
body was removed from the danger of the flames and laid under
a tree. Signs of life reappeared, and he was carried to Mr.
Garrett's porch and a messenger was sent to Port Royal for a

physician, Doctor Urquhart, who, on his arrival, gave it as his
opinion that Booth could not live more than one hour.

Conger, eager to be off to Washington with the momentous
news, began to rifle the pockets of the dying man, who murmured
all the while, "Kill me, please kill me," until he lapsed into
unconsciousness which at seven o'clock deepened into death.

The first sergeant of the company from which the detachment
of cavalry was drawn—Boston Corbett by name—soon claimed
that he fired the shot which killed Booth, and when called to
account by his superior officer, said "Colonel, Providence directed
me." Corbett afterward toured the North lecturing on the
pursuit and capture of the assassins, and was everywhere acclamed
and welcomed as an avenger of blood. His story was not corroborated
by the testimony of a single witness out of the thirty-four
men who were his comrades on the expedition.

In after years Corbett received an appointment as door
keeper of the Kansas House of Representatives, and, while serving
in that capacity, tried to exterminate that body with a revolver,
in consequence of which he finished his days in a lunatic asylum.

The question as to whether Booth was shot by one of his
captors, or whether he killed himself, has never been, and never
can be, definitely answered.

Booth's body was sewn up in an army blanket and conveyed
by a market wagon to Belle Plain where it was put on board a
boat and sent to Washington. A post mortem examination, for
the purpose of identification, revealed that the bullet which
caused his death passed through the neck bone, and this section
of the perforated vertebrae was removed by the surgeon-general
for preservation as a national memento. His remains were
placed in a gun box and buried beneath a cell of the Old
Penitentiary.

Herold, Mrs. Surratt, Payne and Atzerodt were tried as
accomplices in the conspiracy, and were convicted and hanged.
Miss Rita Gray, of Upper Zion owns a charred section of Booth's
crutch which was taken from the barn.