Sergeant Thomas H. "Boston" Corbett was an English-born American soldier and milliner who killed John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln on April 26, 1865. Known for his devout religious beliefs and eccentric behavior, Corbett was reportedly a good soldier and had been a prisoner of war at Andersonville Prison. Corbett shot and mortally wounded Booth when his regiment surrounded him in pursuit. For his actions, Corbett was largely considered a hero by the American media and public.
Corbett c. 1864–1865
A photograph of Corbett in his Union Army uniform.
An 1865 wanted poster for John Wilkes Booth, John Surratt, and David Herold.
"The killing of Booth, the assassin—the dying murderer drawn from the barn where he had taken refuge, on Garrett's farm, near Port Royal, Va., April 26, 1865" (Frank Leslie's Illustrated News)
John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated United States President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. A member of the prominent 19th-century Booth theatrical family from Maryland, he was a noted actor who was also a Confederate sympathizer; denouncing President Lincoln, he lamented the then-recent abolition of slavery in the United States.
Booth c. 1865
Tudor Hall in 1865
The Richmond Theatre, Richmond, Virginia in 1858, when Booth, who had started acting in 1855, made his first stage appearance there in the repertory company
A carte de visite of John Wilkes Booth
