John G. Nicolay, A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln, condensed from Nicolay and Hayes' Abraham Lincoln: A History

[543] a long way; but there is no final escape but suicide for an assassin with a broken leg. At each painful move the chances of discovery increased. Jones was able, after repeated failures, to row his fated guests across the Potomac. Arriving on the Virginia side, they lived the lives of hunted animals for two or three days longer, finding to their horror that they were received by the strongest Confederates with more of annoyance than enthusiasm, though none, indeed, offered to betray them. Booth had by this time seen the comments of the newspapers on his work, and bitterer than death or bodily suffering was the blow to his vanity. He confided his feelings of wrong to his diary, comparing himself favorably with Brutus and Tell, and complaining: “I am abandoned, with the curse of Cain upon me, when, if the world knew my heart, that one blow would have made me great.”

On the night of April 25, he and Herold were surrounded by a party under Lieutenant E. P. Doherty, as they lay sleeping in a barn belonging to one Garrett, in Caroline County, Virginia, on the road to Bowling Green. When called upon to surrender, Booth refused. A parley took place, after which Doherty told him he would fire the barn. At this Herold came out and surrendered. The barn was fired, ,and while it was burning, Booth, clearly visible through the cracks in the building, was shot by Boston Corbett, a sergeant of cavalry. He was hit in the back of the neck, not far from the place where he had shot the President, lingered about three hours in great pain, and died at seven in the morning.

The surviving conspirators, with the exception of John H. Surratt, were tried by military commission sitting in Washington in the months of May and June. The charges against them specified that they were