Thomas ‘Boston’ Corbett: the man who killed Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth

Who was Boston Corbett?

Corbett hailed from Britain. Born in London in 1832, Corbett emigrated to the US around 1839 with his family, settling in New York City.

He initially worked as a hat maker – notably, a trade known for its prominent use of mercury. The element’s use would be the subject of much speculation in later years, as the inhalation of mercury vapour came to be known to cause symptoms including psychosis, and excitability (the symptoms became so common in hatters that the phrase “mad as a hatter” was born).

Corbett’s life would go on to be shaped by his immense devotion to the Christian faith. After the loss of his wife, who died during childbirth, Corbett found purpose in religion after becoming a regular attendee of street preaching congregations.

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In the late 1850s, his evangelism led him to change his first name from Thomas (or Tom), to ‘Boston’, as it was in Boston, Massachusetts, that he devoted himself to religion.

Such was the fervour of his faith, Corbett became a street preacher and, in order to address his sexual impulses, he’s recorded as having castrated himself with scissors.

Boston Corbett’s role in the Civil War

Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War, Corbett enlisted in the Union Army in 1861, and he fought with the 16th New York Cavalry after re-enlisting in 1863.

He military record is largely unremarkable, though there are some tales of him demonstrating particular courage and conviction.

During the height of the war, Corbett was confined as a prisoner of war at the notorious Andersonville Prison where he was subject to appalling conditions and contracted a handful of illnesses and diseases. However, he ultimately survived the ordeal, and was released in late 1864, when he would then recover in hospital.

A few months after his release, the war effectively ended when Confederate general Robert E Lee surrendered to Union forces.

Boston Corbett’s part in the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth

On the evening of 14 April 1865, John Wilkes Booth fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre.

Twelve days later, on 26 April 1865, amid the chaos following the assassination, Corbett was a member of the Union Army detachment pursuing Booth as part of a large-scale manhunt organised by high-level Washington figures including US secretary of war Edwin Stanton.

Corbett was among those who helped to encircle Booth within a barn in Garrett Farm, Virginia, while their leader, Lieutenant Edward P Doherty, engaged in a back-and-forth conversation with Booth, trying to lure him out.

Hours later, patience had run dry.

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Booth was cornered in the now-burning barn when Corbett shot and fatally wounded him through a gap in the barn exterior, despite receiving no order to do so.

The instructions issued to Corbett and his detachment had been the opposite – to capture Booth alive as senior figures in Washington wanted to extract more information about the conspiracy and its motivations.

Was there a conscious motivation behind his decision, or was it simply an unconsidered calculation made in the context of immense stress and pressure? Either way, Corbett’s actions meant that it was he, not Booth, who was sent to Washington for questioning. However, backed by Edwin Stanton himself, Corbett was not court martialled for his actions and, for a short time, was hailed as a hero.

After providing his testimony about the events that led to the killing of Booth, Corbett left the Union Army and returned to his career as a hatter and a preacher.

What happened to Boston Corbett after he killed John Wilkes Booth?

Over the course of the next 20 years, Corbett’s mental state dramatically deteriorated.

Paranoid that Confederate assassins would attempt to target him as revenge for killing Booth, and dogged by hate mail, Corbett isolated himself and built up a reputation as being erratic and unpredictable, and he would brandish his weapons while in public.

Historians have since noted that the decline in his mental condition may have been hastened by his career as a hatter, with the mercury vapours produced in the hat-making process being known to contribute to serious neurological damage.

On 1 October 1887, after a string of violent and threatening displays, Corbett was declared insane and was confined to an asylum in Topeka, Kansas. However, his story continued.

Corbett escaped the asylum in 1888 and told Richard Thatcher, a fellow former Andersonville inmate, that he was heading for Mexico. However, there is no verified evidence of where Corbett went, or what he did, after his escape. From this point onwards, the fate of Corbett remains steeped in mystery.

How and when did Boston Corbett die?

There are no official records of how or when Boston Corbett died.

But there are, of course, rumours about how Corbett met his end, including the suggestion that he died in Minnesota in 1894, in the Great Hinckley Fire.

However (and whenever) he died, Corbett’s life was marked by chaos resulting from a combination of tragedy, faith, short-lived fame, and mental illness. His legend remains just as complex as that of the man he famously killed, and is arguably even more ambiguous.

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