The Madman and the Assassin by Scott Martelle

Author:Scott Martelle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2015-06-21T04:00:00+00:00

7

CELEBRITY, AND INFAMY

Corbett’s bullet hit Booth just below the left side of the skull, then traveled across the top of the neck and on out into the barn. Corbett would later note a sense of poetic, or cosmic, justice in that Lincoln and Booth were each shot around the same spot of the head. And the damage to Booth was no less severe than that to Lincoln: the bullet shattered vertebrae and severed the spinal cord, leaving Booth alive but paralyzed and in great pain.

As the flames spread with a fury, Doherty, several of his soldiers, and Conger rushed into the barn and carried the momentarily unconscious Booth to the grass outside. The fire grew so quickly that they soon moved the wounded assassin a second time, ultimately placing him on the Garretts’ porch, his head on a thin, rolled-up mattress fetched from inside the house.

At first there was confusion about what had happened. Conger presumed Booth had shot himself, though Baker was certain he had not. “Lieutenant Doherty and the detective officers who were in front of the barn did not seem to know that I had shot him,” Corbett said later. “I informed Lieutenant Doherty of the fact, showing him my pistol which bore evidence of the truth of my statement, which was also confirmed by the man placed at my right hand who saw it.” Doherty, Baker, and Conger all questioned Corbett, who said he aimed at Booth’s shoulder, hoping to wound the assassin, but either his aim slipped or Booth moved at the moment Corbett pulled the trigger. Doherty and the detectives’ first statements after Booth’s capture and death make no mention of Corbett having violated any orders, nor do they suggest that he should face disciplinary action for shooting Booth.1

Mortally wounded, Booth drifted in and out of lucidity. In a weak voice, he asked the detectives to “tell my mother I died for my country.” He asked Baker to raise his paralyzed hands so he could see them, then mumbled, “Useless, useless.” Doherty dispatched a soldier to find a doctor who, after a cursory exam, concluded Booth would live. A subsequent closer examination of the wound led to a change in prognosis. The actor, in fact, was dying, and quickly. The sun was low in the morning sky when Booth took a last, short breath.2

As Booth lay dying, the soldiers raced to save the rest of the Garretts’ farm buildings. A small shed connected the burning tobacco barn to the corncrib and some other storage shelters, and as the flames raged the men dismantled the shed to contain the damage to the tobacco barn. The effort worked: the building in which Booth and Herold were found burned to the ground but the other buildings survived.

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