'The Rebel is dead, the Patriot lives' was the verdict of Edwin Stanton, US Secretary of War, when charges of disobeying orders were dropped against Sergeant Boston Corbett of the 16th New York Cavalry in May, 1865.
Corbett had shot John Wilkes Booth through the neck with a revolver as Booth, armed to the teeth, but handicapped with a broken leg, moved towards the door of the Virginia barn in which he and David Herrold, his co-conspirator in the Lincoln assassination, had taken refuge. When asked why he had killed Booth, Corbett replied ‘Providence directed me’.
An instant celebrity, Corbett received $1653.84 share of the reward money for Booth’s capture – an enormous sum considering the monthly pay for a Cavalry Sergeant was $17 a month at the war’s end.
Corbett Emigrates, Suffers Tragedy, Finds Religion and Performs Self-Mutilation
Born Thomas P. Corbett in London in 1832, his family emigrated to the USA in 1839 and settled in New York. He took up the trade of Hatter and moved to Troy, NY State. He married, but his wife died in childbirth. Corbett’s life changed irrevocably after this, though whether his instability was due to the death of his beloved wife or the well-known effects of Mercury used in the Hatter’s trade is subject to speculation.
He moved to Boston, Massachusetts, turned to drink and became a derelict. After attending a Prayer Meeting, he became an evangelical Christian and celebrated his ‘rebirth’ by changing his name to his new home and wearing his hair long in a tribute to Jesus.
Having just left a Prayer Meeting in 1858, Corbett was propositioned by two Prostitutes and decided to castrate himself with a pair of scissors for the sin of being tempted. While still untreated, he attended another Prayer Meeting, had dinner and went for a long walk before eventually seeking treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Corbett Joins the 16th New York Cavalry
Corbett enlisted into the Union Army enthusiastically at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, re-enlisting three times until captured in June 1864, serving five months at the notorious Andersonville stockade in Georgia before being exchanged and rejoining his unit, the 16th NY Cavalry. He was a celebrity witness for the prosecution in the trial of Colonel Henry Wirz, the former Andersonville Commander.
Corbett did the round of lecture tours after the war, returning to his trade of Hatter as his celebrity faded, first in Boston, then Connecticut and New Jersey. In 1875 he threatened several former comrades with a pistol at a soldier’s reunion in Ohio when they doubted his killing of Booth, then moved to Concordia in Kansas, living in a hole dug out of a hillside, tending sheep and shooting Hawks and Crows out of the sky.
Confinement, Escape and a Mysterious Ending
A chance meeting with an old comrade secured him the job of Assistant Doorkeeper at the Kansas House of Representatives in Topeka, where in 1887 he waved a pistol around threatening fellow staff after a joke was made about the Legislature’s opening prayer. Arrested and declared criminally insane, he was incarcerated in the Topeka Asylum for the Insane. The following year he escaped on horseback and stayed at the home of a former Andersonville comrade in Neodesha, Kansas.
From here, Corbett’s fate is unknown. He may have become a travelling Salesman for W&W Gavitt, selling proprietary medicines in Oklahoma and Texas, he may have gone to Mexico, but Corbett’s most likely fate is that he died in the forests of Minnesota in the Great Hinckley Fire of 1894, where the name of Thomas Corbett appears on the list of dead and missing persons.
Sources
‘The Civil War’ 28 Volume Series by Time-Life Inc.
‘The Assassination’: Death of the President ISBN 0-8094-4820-3
‘The Nation Reunited’: War’s Aftermath ISBN 0-8094-4792-4
‘Who Was Who in the Civil War’ Stewart Sifakis ISBN 0-8160-1055-2
‘Reveille in Washington’ Margaret Leech Pub. Eyre & Spottiswood 1942
'1865 Customs of Service' August V. Kautz ISBN 0-8117-0399-1
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