1865-4-12 Lincoln Assassinated

.26th April 1865: John Wilkes Booth killed; Union troops - HiPo > .

On the night of 12 April 1865, famed actor John Wilkes Booth entered President Lincoln’s box at Ford’s Theater in Washington D.C. and shot him in the back of the head. After stabbing Major Henry Rathbone who was accompanying the President, Booth jumped down to the stage, injuring his leg. Here, according to some witnesses, he shouted ‘Sic semper tyrannis!’ (Latin for ‘Thus always to tyrants,’ the state motto of Virginia) before leaving through a side door and riding away on a waiting horse.

Booth fled across the Navy Yard Bridge to his home state of Maryland, accompanied by co-conspirator David Herold. After visiting Dr. Samuel Mudd who treated Booth’s injured leg, the two fugitives hid in woodland before crossing the Potomac River into Virginia on 23 April. The next day 25 Union soldiers, led by Lieutenant Edward P. Doherty and accompanied by intelligence officer Everton Conger, were sent to find and capture Booth.

After landing in Virginia, Conger interrogated William S. Jett, a former private in the 9th Virginia Cavalry, who had helped Booth and Herold find shelter at Richard H. Garrett’s farm on the other side of the Rappahannock River. The soldiers arrived at the farm on the morning of 26 April, where they found the fugitives hiding in a tobacco barn.

Conger threatened to set fire to the barn unless the men gave themselves up. Herold surrendered, but Booth refused. As the barn burned, Sergeant Boston Corbett shot Booth on his own initiative, inflicting a fatal neck wound. He was dragged out of the barn and died three hours later, muttering ‘Useless,’ as he gazed at his hands.