On April 26, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, was surrounded and killed by federal troops near Bowling Green, Virginia. Booth had been on the run for twelve days after he shot the President in Ford's Theatre.
After escaping the theater, Booth had been pursued by Edward Paul Doherty (left), a Canadian U.S. Civil War officer who formed and led the detachment of soldiers that eventually tracked Booth down to a tobacco barn in Virginia. With the barn surrounded, Doherty called upon Booth to surrender, but he refused and threatened to shoot anyone who entered. His accomplice, David Herold, relented and surrendered.
In response to the assassin's continued resistance, the soldiers set fire to the barn. Sergeant Thomas “Boston” Corbett (right) fatally shot Booth through a crack in the side of the barn, claiming the fugitive had "raised his pistol to shoot". Doherty stated that "the bullet struck Booth in the back of the head, about an inch below the spot where his shot had entered the head of Mr. Lincoln." Doherty and the men of his regiment returned to Washington, DC on April 27 with Booth's body. Herold was tried by a military tribunal, found guilty, and hung in July that year.
For his service in the capture of Lincoln's assassin, Doherty was promoted to Captain and given a $5,250 reward ($76,086.96 today), while Corbett received $1,653.84 ($25,000 today).
“Capt. Edward P. Doherty, (John Wilkes) Booth's Captor“
