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Sunday, April 26, 2015

LINCOLN'S ASSASSIN KILLED

LINCOLN'S ASSASSIN KILLED IN VIRGINIA 150 YEARS AGO TODAY

Port Royal, Virginia (JFK+50) 150 years ago today, April 26, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, was shot and killed after being surrounded in a barn on the farm of Richard Henry Garrett in northern Virginia.

The assassin, 26 years years old, was accompanied by accomplice David Herold who quickly gave himself up shortly after the arrival of the New York 16th Cavalry around 2 o'clock in the morning.

When Booth refused to surrender,  soldiers set fire to the barn and a single shot was fired hitting the actor and Southern sympathizer in the neck.  The wound caused instant paralysis and Booth was dragged out of the burning structure.

Taken to the porch of the Garrett farmhouse, John Wilkes Booth breathed his last at 7 a.m.  In his last moments, the assassin asked that his hands be held up for him to see.  Booth's last words were..."useless, useless."

The intent had been to take Booth alive, but one of the cavalrymen, Boston Corbett, shot the assassin by firing his weapon into the burning barn.

SOURCE

"The Death of John Wilkes Booth, 1865," Eyewitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/



Garrett Farmhouse
Port Royal, Virginia