Chasing Lincoln's Killer

by James L. Swanson

To David Herold’s dismay, Booth intended to spend another night at the farm. He would ask the Garretts for another night of hospitality for him and for Herold. With his father temporarily away from the farm on business, it fell to son John to decide whether to take in not one but two men. To their surprise, John Garrett refused to take them in for the night. Booth’s panic at the sight of the riders was a tip-off: Something was not right. John Garrett was suspicious of Booth now.

  The Sixteenth New York Cavalry rode into Port Conway on Tuesday, April 25, late in the afternoon. Luther Baker spotted William Rollins, the man who had offered to ferry Booth, Herold, Jett, Ruggles, and Bainbridge to Port Royal. From questioning Rollins, Baker discovered that a man with a broken leg had crossed the river the day before, around noon. It must be Booth! That meant the fugitives were only about a day’s ride ahead of them. Baker learned something else that interested him: Booth was now in the company of three Confederate soldiers. That could add to the danger of the mission to capture Booth. Rollins then identified photographs of Herold and Booth. Rollins and his wife also identified the three rebel soldiers: Willie Jett, Ruggles, and Bainbridge. In a stroke of luck, they also had an idea where Willie Jett might be headed: Jett had been courting a young lady whose father kept a hotel in the nearby town of Bowling Green. The soldiers’ next destination was clear: Cross the Rappahannock, then on to look for Jett.

  It was 4:00 P.M. on Tuesday, April 25. John Garrett worried about what to do with his now unwanted guests. Soon two horsemen, riding quickly from the direction of Port Royal, galloped toward the house at high speed. Booth and Herold left the front porch to meet them. Ruggles and Bainbridge hurried to bring the news — the Union cavalry was coming! The Confederates had seen the patrol crossing the Rappahannock on the ferry. Worse news, the patrol had seen the Confederates watching them from the ridge overlooking the ferry.

  Bainbridge and Ruggles turned their horses around and galloped away, heading away from where they had seen the patrol. Booth and Herold looked at each other and, without exchanging a word, ran for the woods behind Garrett’s barn and waited. No cavalry arrived.

  If Booth’s agitation about the riders worried Garrett, his flight into the woods with Herold frightened him even more. John Garrett complained forcefully, asking them to leave the house. While he argued with them, a thunderous sound shook the earth. “There goes the cavalry now!” Garrett exclaimed. It was Union soldiers but, incredibly, they rode right past the front gate and raced on toward Bowling Green in pursuit of Willie Jett! John Garrett, certain Herold knew the patrol’s purpose, asked them again to leave at once.

  Once again, Booth and Herold needed transportation. Where could they find horses or hire a team and a wagon? Garrett agreed to help them, taking them where they wanted to go himself if necessary. To his dismay, Booth and Herold said they did not want to leave until morning!

  The mood at the dinner table this night differed from the friendly atmosphere the night before. The reluctant hosts talked no more of the Lincoln assassination. After supper, the fugitives again discussed where they might find transportation, probably horses. The Civil War had consumed most of the good horses in the South; they were scarce and valuable. John Garrett grew increasingly suspicious of the strangers: Did they intend to steal horses from the Garretts?

  Booth and Herold sat on the front porch, watching the evening sky’s last clouds and colors fade to black. The scent of the spring night filled their nostrils until the sweetly burning smoke rising from Booth’s pipe flavored the air. The reluctant Garretts had nourished and sustained Booth for another day. Tomorrow morning, Wednesday, April 26, he would continue his journey south. It would be the twelfth day.

  But first, they would rest another night. They planned to spend the night in the bed Garrett had offered Booth the night before. John Garrett stunned the two by barking out that they could not sleep in the house. Could they sleep under the house, then? Impossible, said Garrett, the dogs sleep there and would bite them. Herold put the matter to rest, announcing they would sleep in the tobacco barn, then. John Garrett still did not know the identity of the man he was throwing out of his house. He was pretty sure the two were in some kind of trouble, but it was unlikely he knew it was Lincoln’s killer who was a guest at his family’s dinner table.

  Booth and Herold headed toward the tobacco barn, which stood a hundred feet or so from the main house. It was forty-eight feet by fifty feet, with a slanted roof and wide, open slats in the walls. By 9:00 P.M., Booth and Herold had unrolled their blankets and settled in for the night. They were unaware that the Garretts, already guilty of inhospitality, were conspiring to commit a worse offense: treachery. Lincoln’s assassin had just walked into a trap.

  The Garretts swung the barn door shut behind the fugitives. Neither Booth nor Herold paid attention to the black iron lock on the door as they passed through the doorway. John Garrett was sure the men were scheming to steal their horses in the middle of the night. What better way to prevent that than by locking the strangers in the tobacco shed until morning? His brother William tiptoed to the front door and, as quietly as he could, inserted the key into the lock. The fugitives did not hear the sliding bolt, did not know they were prisoners. Then brothers John and William Garrett grabbed blankets and a pistol and spent the night in the corn house, watching the tobacco barn and waiting, listening for suspicious sounds in the night.

  At 11:00 P.M., the cavalry patrol approached Bowling Green. They surrounded the Star Hotel, expecting to find Willie Jett inside. The proprietor of the house led the soldiers to a second-story bedroom. Prepared for anything, the officer and detectives rushed in and discovered Willie. They seized him, hustled him downstairs roughly, and confined him in the parlor. Doherty, Baker, and Conger worked on Jett, trying to frighten him. Conger asked, “Where are the two men who came with you across the river at Port Royal?” Jett betrayed John Wilkes Booth: “I know who you want and I will tell you where they can be found.” He revealed the fugitives were at Richard Garrett’s farmhouse and agreed to show the soldiers where they were. Without Jett’s help, it might be difficult, almost impossible, to locate the Garrett farm in the middle of the night.

  It was day twelve. At about 12:30 A.M., the Sixteenth New York Cavalry headed for Garrett’s farm and, they hoped, the capture of Lincoln’s assassin.

  Once at the front gate of the Garrett farm, a charge was ordered. The Sixteenth New York Cavalry raced up the dirt road toward the farmhouse.

  The Garretts’ dogs heard the noise first: the sound of metal touching metal, of one hundred hooves sending vibrations through the earth. On watch, John and William Garrett heard it, too. The barking of the dogs and clanking metal sounds finally woke Booth. Recognizing the unique music of cavalry on the move, the assassin knew he had only a minute or two to react before it was too late.

  The cavalry is here, Booth hissed as he woke Herold. They snatched up their weapons and rushed to the front of the barn, where they discovered the door was locked! The Garretts had imprisoned them! Booth tried to pry the lock from its mountings. They had to flee immediately, before the Union troops could surround them. They scampered to the back wall of the barn and tried to kick out a board so they could crawl out. With Booth’s injured leg, even working together, he and Herold could not dislodge a board so they could escape to the woods.

  The Union column raced up the road and surrounded the farmhouse. Edward Doherty, Luther Baker, and Everton Conger dropped from their saddles, leaped up onto the porch, and pounded on the door. Richard Garrett climbed from his bed and walked downstairs in his nightclothes.

  In the tobacco barn, David Herold panicked. “You had better give up,” he urged.

  No, no, the actor insisted, “I will suffer death first.”

  Conger demanded of Richard Garrett, “Where are the two men who stopped here at your house?” Garrett turned out to be very reluctant to reveal Booth and Herold’s whereabo
uts. Even the threat of hanging did not move Richard Garrett to reveal where the prey were hiding. Then Doherty seized John Garrett and put a revolver to his head, ordering him to tell where the assassins were.

  “In the barn,” he slowly revealed, “they are in the tobacco barn.” The soldiers rushed to surround the barn. Baker ordered John Garrett to enter the barn and take the weapons from the fugitives. John had seen Booth’s weapons and knew he would not hesitate to take revenge for his family’s inhospitality and betrayal. No, he would not be the assassin’s last victim. Baker explained that the mission was not optional. If he did not go to the barn, Baker would burn all of the Garrett property. He would “end this affair with a bonfire and shooting match.”

  Baker unlocked the barn door, opened it a little, with Booth invisible just a few yards away. He clutched his pistols tightly but held his fire. Baker seized John Garrett and half-guided, half-pushed him through the door and closed it behind him.

  John Garrett urged Booth, still hidden in the dark, to give himself up. Like a ghostly vision, John Wilkes Booth’s pale, haunting face emerged from the darkness as his voice exploded: “Damn you! You have betrayed me! If you don’t get out of here, I will shoot you! Get out of this barn at once!” The assassin reached behind his back for one of his revolvers. A terrified John Garrett turned and ran, escaping the barn.

  Finally, at the climax of a twelve-day manhunt that had gripped the nation, a heavily armed patrol of the Sixteenth New York Cavalry had cornered Lincoln’s assassin!

  Surprisingly, instead of ordering their men to rush the barn and take Booth, they first sent an unarmed civilian to disarm him. When that scheme failed, they attempted to talk him out of the barn! Why didn’t twenty-six armed soldiers, under cloak of darkness, charge two civilians hiding in a barn? Surely, the honor of capturing Lincoln’s assassin was worth the risk of a few casualties?

  Baker shouted an ultimatum to the fugitives: “I want you to surrender. If you don’t, I will burn this barn down in fifteen minutes.”

  Booth stepped to the front of the barn and peered through a space between two boards, examining the manhunters. “Who are you?” “What do you want?” “Whom do you want?”

  “We want you,” Baker replied, “and we know who you are. Give up your arms and come out!”

  Booth continued to stall, asking for time to make a decision. Baker agreed to the delay. Herold decided to give himself up. He thought he could talk his way out of trouble and just go home. In his mind, he wasn’t guilty of anything: Booth had shot Lincoln, Powell had stabbed Seward, and he had just been along for the ride.

  Booth, however, refused to let Herold go. Herold pleaded with Booth, begging to be released. Finally, Booth relented, denouncing his companion: “You damned coward! . . . Go! Go!” Herold had stood by Booth, even when he had a chance to leave. He had rendered loyal service, and it was harsh to call him a coward now. Herold turned away from Booth and faced the door. He thrust one empty hand at a time through the door frame where the soldiers could see them.

  Doherty sprung to the door, seized Herold by the wrists, and yanked him through the doorway. He frisked him to make sure he was unarmed and, like a schoolmaster taking a disobedient student by the collar, marched him away from the barn.

  Now there remained only John Wilkes Booth, still at bay, and armed. For Booth, this was his final and greatest performance, not just for the small audience of soldiers at Garrett’s barn, but also for history.

  William H. Seward later in life, showing the scar from Lewis Powell’s knife.

  The surrender of David Herold at the Garrett farm

  He had already committed the most daring public murder in American history. Indeed, he had performed it, fully staged before an audience at Ford’s Theatre. Tonight he would script his own end with a performance that equaled his triumph at Ford’s.

  Baker and Conger argued against waiting until morning to take Booth. In a few hours, the light of dawn would illuminate the manhunters and make them into perfect, visible targets. Booth could hardly miss. One of Doherty’s sergeants, Boston Corbett, volunteered for a suicide mission: He would slip into the barn alone and fight Booth one-on-one. Three times Corbett volunteered, each time Doherty ordered Corbett back to his position.

  Conger and Baker had another plan: They wanted to burn the barn. The flames and smoke would do the job of flushing Booth out, without harm to the men. Conger ordered the Garrett sons to collect a few armfuls of straw and pile them against the side of the barn. The rustling sounds alerted Booth, who rushed to the site of the noise. He ordered the Garretts to move away from the barn or he would shoot them. They quickly retreated out of pistol range.

  Anticipating the barn was about to be burned down, Booth challenged all of his pursuers to honorable combat on open ground. He had just challenged twenty-six men, a lieutenant, and two detectives to a duel. Baker declined the offer.

  “Well, my brave boys, prepare a stretcher for me!” Booth replied merrily.

  Conger bent over and lit the kindling. The pine twigs and straw burst into flames that licked the dry, weathered boards. Soon the barn caught fire, and within minutes the corner of the barn blazed brightly. The fire cast a yellow-orange glow that flickered eerily across the faces of the soldiers. Booth could see them clearly now but held his fire.

  As the fire grew, it lit the inside of the barn so that for the first time the soldiers could also see their quarry in the gaps between the slats. The assassin had three choices: stay in the barn and burn alive, blow his brains out, or script his own honorable end by hobbling out the front door and doing battle with the manhunters, welcoming death but risking capture.

  Booth decided it was better to die than be taken back to Washington to face justice. He did not wish to bear the spectacle of a trial that would put him on public display for the amusement of the press and curiosity seekers. Nor did he wish to endure the rituals of a hanging: being bound and blindfolded, parading past his own coffin and open grave, climbing the steps of the scaffold. The shameful death of a common criminal was not for him. It was far better to perish here.

  Booth stood in the center of the barn, awkwardly balancing the carbine in one hand, a pistol in the other, and a crutch under one arm. Measuring how quickly the flames were engulfing him, he hopped forward, the carbine in his right hand, the butt plate balanced against his hip.

  Outside the barn, Conger, Baker, Doherty, and the cavalrymen tensed for action. No one could endure the hot flames and choking smoke for long. They expected the door to swing open at any moment and see Booth emerge with his hands up or his pistols blazing.

  Boston Corbett watched the assassin’s every move inside the barn. Unseen by Booth, he walked up to one side of the barn and peeked between one of the gaps in the barn walls. As the flames grew brighter, Corbett could see his prey clearly. The sergeant watched Booth and drew his pistol. Booth leveled the carbine against his hip, as though preparing to bring it into firing position. Corbett poked the barrel of his revolver through the slit in the wall, aimed at Booth, and fired.

  The soldiers heard one shot. Instantly, Booth dropped the carbine and crumpled to his knees.

  Like sprinters cued by a starting gun, Baker rushed into the barn with Conger at his heels. Conger seized the assassin’s pistol. They lifted Booth from the floor, carried him under the trees a few yards from the door, and laid him on the grass. Though unable to move, Booth opened his eyes and attempted to speak. Conger called for water, poured a little into Booth’s mouth, and he spit it out. The assassin could not swallow, he was completely paralyzed. For the first time in his life, the great actor was at a loss for words. His voice was silenced by the bullet that had quickly passed through his neck and spinal column. After several attempts at speaking, Booth whispered: “Tell Mother, I die for my country.” It was hard to hear his faint voice above the roar of the fire, the shouts of the men, and t
he snorting of the horses.

  As the blaze in the barn grew to an inferno, the soldiers retreated to the Garrett house, moving Booth’s limp body onto the porch near the bench where Booth had sat, smoked, napped, and chatted over the previous two days. Blood seeped from the entry and exit wounds in his neck and pooled under his head, staining the floorboards.

  Doherty brought David Herold to the porch, bound his hands, and tied him to a tree about two yards from where Booth lay. Herold would have a front-row seat for the climax of the chase for Lincoln’s killer.

  Printmakers hurried to publish images depicting the historic showdown at Garrett’s farm.

  Booth suffered extreme pain whenever he was moved. “Kill me,” he begged the soldiers. “Kill me, kill me!”

  “We don’t want to kill you,” Conger reassured him, “we want you to get well.” He was sincere. They wanted Booth alive so they could bring him back to Washington as a prize for Edwin Stanton. Stanton and others were certain Booth was merely an agent of a Confederate conspiracy. Following the swearing-in of Andrew Johnson as the seventeenth president, Stanton had issued a reward for Jefferson Davis and other Confederate officials, naming them as assassination conspirators. Two other captured conspirators, Michael O’Laughlen and Sam Arnold, had already confessed everything they knew about the plot. If Booth talked, too, he might reveal valuable information that implicated the highest officials in the Confederacy.

  But because of someone under Conger’s command, it was obvious Booth was not going back to Washington alive. Who fired that shot? Conger demanded to know. Boston Corbett came forward, snapped to attention, saluted Conger, and proclaimed that he had shot Booth, and Providence had directed him to do it. He claimed he opened fire because he thought Booth was going to shoot the soldiers. He did it to protect the lives of his fellow troopers.

  In fact, the men of the Sixteenth New York had not been ordered to hold their fire. Conger, Baker, and Doherty had failed to give them any orders at all on the subject. As a noncommissioned officer, Corbett exercised his own discretion and shot Booth.