John Wilkes Booth knew his time was about to run out. The actor-turned-assassin had been on the run for 12 long days after shooting and killing President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. Now, in the early morning hours of April 26, 1865, Booth was trapped in a tobacco barn on a farm in Virginia, surrounded by Union troops.
The orders from Washington were clear: Booth was to be taken alive. Authorities wanted to question the 26-year-old Booth to find out how extensive the assassination conspiracy was and who exactly was involved.
Photo Credit: New York History Blog
Booth was attempting to bargain for his life from inside the barn when a Union troop lit the structure on fire. As flames engulfed the barn, a soldier named Boston Corbett, who could see Booth through a crack in the barn, asked permission from his superiors to rush the barn and flush Booth out. He was denied.
A short time later, Corbett claimed he saw Booth point his gun at the troops outside, so he fired his weapon. Corbett said, “I did not fire the ball from fear, but because I was under the impression at the time that he had started to the door to fight his way through, and I thought he would do harm to my men if I did not.”