Lincoln’s Legacy: Historic Americana from the Life of Abraham Lincoln

4 pp., 8 x 5 in. (203 x 127 mm); creasing from old folds, rubbing along same.

"I HAVE NOT YET RECEIVED MY PART OF THE REWARD."

Sergeant Thomas H. "Boston" Corbett enlisted as a private in Company I of the Union Army's 12th New York State Militia on 19 April 1861. Devoutly religious, Corbett quickly found himself being regularly reprimanded by superior officers for his habit of reading aloud from his personal Bible he carried with him during marches, and holding unauthorized prayer meetings. At one point, Corbett reprimanded Colonel Daniel Butterfield for taking the Lord's name in vain and after refusing to apologize he was court-martialed and sentenced to be shot; this sentence was reduced, and he was discharged, only to re-enlist shortly after. Corbett was captured by Confederate troops led by John S. Mosby in 1864 and was sent to Andersonville Prison, where he remained for five months. Upon his release in a prisoner exchange, he was promoted to sergeant.

At the time of Lincoln's assassination, Corbett was a member of the regiment led by Lieutenant Edward P. Doherty. On 24 April, they were sent to capture Booth, then hiding in Virginia, and Corbett was among the first to volunteer to join the hunt. When at last the regiment caught up to Booth at Garrett's farm two days later, Corbett offered to enter the barn and let Booth shoot him so the regiment could overwhelm him before he had a chance to reload, an offer which Doherty rejected in favor of setting the barn ablaze to force the assassin out. Though given strict orders by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to take Booth alive, Corbett fired a single shot into Booth's neck, claiming later that he'd seen Booth raise his carbine to take a shot at Doherty.

Following Booth's death, Corbett was hailed as the brave avenger of President Lincoln, and it was because of this that no punishment was given to him despite his having disobeyed direct orders from Stanton and his superior officers to capture Booth alive, with Stanton remarking that "The rebel is dead. The patriot lives; he has spared the country expense, continued excitement and trouble. Discharge the patriot." Corbett would later receive $1,653.84 (equivalent to $34,000 today) for his part in Booth's capture.

In later years, Corbett became something of an itinerant. The recipient of constant death threats from Southern sympathizers for killing Booth, he became increasingly paranoid and began to keep a gun with him at all times. Ten years after Booth's death, during a soldier's reunion, he got into an argument over whether or not Booth had been killed at all and was removed from the reunion for pulling a pistol on the men. In 1887, while working as an assistant doorkeeper at the Kansas House of Representatives, he again brandished a pistol at officers of the House whom he was convinced were conspiring against him. This time, Corbett was sent to an insane asylum from which he escaped the following year, and then disappeared.

In this letter, written less than three weeks after Booth's death, Corbett describes his military service, his capture and imprisonment at Andersonville, and complains that "I did not get my Discharge from the Secretary of War Which I asked for After Shooting Booth," and "I have not yet received any part of the Reward." 

Provenance:

Louise Taper, Beverly Hills, California

Exhibition:

Blood on the Moon, at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, 19 April-16 October 2005