Useless! Useless!

April 26, 1865

As President Abraham Lincoln is enjoying a play at Ford’s Theatre the evening of April 14, 1865, actor John Wilkes Booth sneaks up behind the president and shoots him in the head. Lincoln dies early the next morning. After Booth escapes from Ford’s Theatre, Federal cavalry and troops throughout Maryland and Virginia pursue the fugitive assassin.

Early The Morning Of April 26, John Wilkes Booth Is Nearing His Fate

Booth and David Herold (an accomplice in the assassination) are hiding in a tobacco barn owned by Richard H. Garrett near Bowling Green, Virginia. Federal troops commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Everton Conger surround the tobacco barn and Conger orders the suspects to come out and surrender. David Herold gives up and is quickly taken into custody.

For a few hours, John Wilkes Booth stages a standoff while he rants from within the barn. To force Booth out of Garrett’s tobacco barn, Conger orders his troops to set the barn on fire. As the barn burns, Sergeant Boston Corbett sees an opportunity and shoots Booth in the neck. The paralyzed and mortally injured assassin is drug from the burning barn to the porch of the Garrett house. Around seven in the morning, John Wilkes Booth dies on the Garrett porch.

As He Lay Dying, Booth Looked At His Hands And Spoke These Last Words:

“Useless! Useless!”