John Wilkes Booth spent his career commanding attention on America’s most prestigious stages.
But his final act unfolded in a humble Virginia tobacco barn that became the scene of one of history’s most controversial manhunts.
And John Wilkes Booth’s final performance left Americans stunned when this shocking truth emerged about his death.
Union troops cornered Lincoln’s assassin in a dramatic standoff
In the pre-dawn darkness of April 26, 1865, a detachment from the 16th New York Cavalry surrounded a tobacco-curing barn near Port Royal, Virginia. Inside were John Wilkes Booth and his accomplice David Herold, exhausted after 12 days on the run following Lincoln’s assassination.
Detective Luther Baker gave the fugitives an ultimatum: surrender within five minutes or they would set the barn ablaze.
“I am a cripple. I have got but one leg. If you will withdraw your men in line 100 yards from the door, I will come out and fight you,” Booth countered, attempting to negotiate despite the leg injury he sustained jumping from Lincoln’s box at Ford’s Theatre.
When the soldiers refused his request, Booth delivered what detective Everton Conger described as a response in a “singularly theatrical voice”: “Well, my brave boys, prepare a stretcher for me!”
While Herold surrendered, Booth remained defiant inside the burning barn. According to Conger’s account, the detective had twisted hay into a makeshift fuse and ignited it, sending flames spreading rapidly across the barn floor.
As smoke filled the structure, Booth “relaxed his muscles and turned around and started for the door.”
Then a single shot rang out.
A controversial killing denied Americans answers
When the detectives rushed into the barn, they found Booth with a serious neck wound. Initially assuming Booth had shot himself, they carried him from the burning structure and laid him on the grass.
Booth whispered, “Tell mother, I die for my country.”
Contrary to what many think, Booth didn’t die instantly. His death scene dragged on for hours as he lay dying on the porch of the Garrett family farmhouse. In unbearable pain, he repeatedly begged, “Kill me! Kill me!” A local doctor pronounced his condition hopeless, and he died around 7 a.m.
The bullet that killed Booth hadn’t come from his own gun but from Army Sergeant Boston Corbett, who later testified, “I could see him, but he could not see me. It was not through fear at all that I shot him, but because it was my impression that it was time the man was shot, for I thought he would do harm to our men . . .”
Corbett’s unauthorized action made it impossible to capture Booth alive for questioning about the breadth of the assassination conspiracy. For his controversial role, Corbett later collected a $1,653.85 reward.
The mystery that refused to die
Army doctors examined Booth’s body aboard the USS Montauk and confirmed his identity based on a surgical scar and the initials “JWB” tattooed on his left hand. They concluded the body was “beyond dispute” Booth’s.
But in a nation still reeling from Lincoln’s murder, not everyone accepted the official account.
Conspiracy theories spread like wildfire. Many believed that Booth, a professional actor skilled in disguise, had escaped before the barn confrontation and that some unfortunate stand-in had taken the fatal shot.
Newspaper stories soon placed Booth in locations across the globe – Mexico, India, Cuba, Brazil, Italy, Germany, Turkey, and China, among others. Some claimed he’d become a mining magnate in South America or Australia’s leading actor under the name “Senor Enos.” Others insisted he remained in America as an Episcopal minister in Atlanta or a Tennessee carpenter.
In 1907, a popular book even claimed that a man confessing to be Booth had died just four years earlier in Enid, Oklahoma. The man’s mummified corpse became a carnival attraction that toured the country.
U.S. Senator Garrett Davis of Kentucky voiced his suspicions during an 1866 Senate debate: “I cannot conceive, if he was in the barn, why he was not taken alive and brought to this city alive. There is a mystery and a most inexplicable mystery to my mind about the whole affair.”
While several of these rumors originated with patients in an Ohio insane asylum, other seemingly credible citizens claimed to have seen Booth or received letters from him years after his reported death.
The mystery of Booth’s final days and controversial death continues to fascinate Americans more than 150 years later – a testament to the enduring public interest in one of the darkest chapters of American history.
Are you enjoying 24/7’s deep dives into recent and not-so-recent history? Would you like to see more stories like this one? If so, send a note to [email protected] and let our Editorial Team hear from you today!Keep an eye on your inboxes every Thursday and Saturday for new editions of “Today in History” from the 24/7 team!
Related posts:
Tulsi Gabbard crushed Deep State traitors with this bombshell announcement that left Democrats panic-stricken
Laura Ingraham’s set erupted over what this Texas Congressman just said about Trump
