12. One of the soldiers shot Booth as he raged in the barn
Surrounded by flames, and combustible materials, Booth could be seen clearly by the soldiers outside the barn. In violation of his orders, which were to capture the assassin alive, Baker was dismayed to hear a shot ring out from outside the barn. Soldiers rushed into the flames to retrieve the fallen Booth. He was carried to the porch of the Garrett house. There he remained conscious, though paralyzed from the shoulders down. Baker and Conger ordered the shooter, Sergeant Boston Corbett, placed under arrest for violating orders. In his report to Edwin Stanton, Conger recommended severe discipline for Corbett, a position endorsed by Luther Baker. Corbett was taken to Washington, where Stanton interviewed him at the War Department. After the interview, Stanton ordered the charges dismissed, and referred to Corbett as a hero.
Booth lingered on the Garrett porch for about three hours, unable to even swallow the water soldiers poured into his mouth. According to Conger, he gasped out several words, including “kill me” several times. Near dawn, he asked for his hands to be raised before his face and uttered, “useless, useless”. He died a few minutes later. Immediately following his death his body was carried by wagon to Belle Plain, where the monitor USS Montauk picked it up and conveyed it to the Washington Navy Yard. Following an identification process and an autopsy, which revealed asphyxiation from paralysis as the cause of death, he was buried on the grounds of the Old Penitentiary. Later the body was moved to another gravesite at the Washington Arsenal. In 1869 the remains were released to the Booth family, which reinterred them in Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland.
