THOMAS H. "BOSTON" CORBETT

 You can easily be forgiven for not knowing who Thomas H. "Boston" Corbett was. He did one super important thing in history, and you all know what that deed is. You just don't know the man behind the deed.

Don't look him up yet. Just go with the flow on this.

He was born in England before going to New York City with his parents as a child. They wound up in Troy, NY, and he started working as a milliner. Back in the 19th Century that involved working with a lot with mercury nitrate, ie. the reason the Mad Hatter is mad. When you take this into consideration, his later life makes a lot of sense. He did many crazy things, and chemical psychosis explains that away pretty neatly.

He married and became an American citizen, but he found it hard to keep a job in Virginia because he was very much against slavery. There are abolitionists, and there is this guy. He chomped at the bit whenever the subject came up. His wife grew sick and died, and he took up the bottle and drank heavily until he fell under the sway of the Methodist Church. They sobered him up, and now that his head was clear, he devoted his life to God. So much to the point that whenever someone cursed in his presence, he stopped to sing and pray for the lost soul doing the cursing. He regularly stopped doing his job to do this, so he made a lot of bosses angry.

And Corbett didn't fuck around. He took the teachings of the Bible literally, especially when it comes to what happens when one's eye offends thee. He desperately wanted to be celibate, but his sexual thoughts kept getting in his way. So he did the Biblical thing to do: he castrated himself. With scissors. He didn't rush to get to a hospital, either. He had enough time to grab a bite to eat and to go to church and pray first.

And he was happy about it. Without sexual thoughts he was able to preach more. At around this point he picked up the nickname "Boston." It was the city in which he'd converted. He spent a lot of his time rounding up drunks and feeding them, getting them sober and hopefully converting them to Jesus.

And then the Civil War began. As anti-slavery as he was, he couldn't wait to join the Union Army even though he had to cut his Jesus-long hair to do so. He carried a Bible with him always and read to his fellow soldiers whether they liked it or not. He routinely got into trouble with his superiors and eventually was sentenced to death by firing squad for taking one to task over cursing and using the Lord's name in vain. They decided not to shoot him and discharged him instead. He quickly joined up with the Cavalry where he was demoted from sergeant to private over something that history has forgotten.

Late in the war he found his unit surrounded by Confederates. His fellow soldiers were captured, and he was left in a ditch with a repeating rifle. They didn't stop him until he ran out of ammo. One of the Confederates put a gun to his head but was stopped because "[h]e has a right to defend himself to the last!" And so he was sent to the horrorshow that is Andersonville. After months of torment and torture he was released. For his heroics he was promoted back to sergeant.

And then came April 14, 1865. You know that date. And now you may suspect why Corbett is important to history.

When Abraham Lincoln was shot, Corbett was part of his funeral parade. Not long after that he was given orders to follow up a lead on John Wilkes Booth's location. They had him cornered at a Virginia farmhouse. Corbett had his men surround the house, at which point David Herrold, one of Booth's co-conspirators, surrendered, leaving Booth inside on his own. Corbett asked his CO for permission to go in alone to get Booth. He reasoned that if Booth shot him, then the other soldiers can get Booth. He was denied and positioned at the perimeter around the farmhouse. They set it on fire to burn out Booth, but Corbett found himself near a large crack in the wall, where he could see into the house and to Booth.

Corbett said that he saw Booth aim his carbine, forcing him to shoot Booth before he could pull the trigger. The minie ball struck Booth in the exact same place that he'd earlier shot Lincoln. Pure coincidence. Corbett might have called it divine intervention. In fact when asked about it, he said, "Providence guided my hand."

They dragged a screaming, mortally wounded John Wilkes Booth out into the open like a vampire. He begged for water, but when he got some he couldn't drink it. Lincoln had been lucky. He'd been unconscious until he succumbed to the assassin's bullet. Booth was not so lucky. He remained conscious as he died inch by inch. It took him so long to die that he literally begged the Union soldiers to kill him. Then, finally, hours after being shot he died. In case you were wondering, his last words were, as he looked at his hands, "Useless . . . useless."

Here's the thing: by shooting Booth, Corbett had gone against orders according to some historians, and it was a bit of a scandal. Corbett insisted that he thought Booth was going to shoot his way out, so shooting him dead was self-defense. "Booth would have killed me if I had not shot first. I think I did right." He then said that he hadn't intended to kill Booth, but at the same time he didn't have any problems with the result. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton famously said of Booth and Corbett, "The rebel is dead. The patriot lives. He has spared the country expense, continued excitement and trouble. Discharge the patriot."

Corbett became a celebrity. People wanted his autograph. They wanted to hear him tell the story of killing John Wilkes Booth. They wanted to buy the gun that killed the rebel, which he wouldn't sell "at any price" because the gun belonged to the government. But this is how he usually told the tale:

I aimed at his body. I did not want to kill him....I think he stooped to pick up something just as I fired. That may probably account for his receiving the ball in the head. [W]hen the assassin lay at my feet, a wounded man, and I saw the bullet had taken effect about an inch back of the ear, and I remembered that Mr. Lincoln was wounded about the same part of the head, I said: "What a God we have...God avenged Abraham Lincoln.

The public didn't agree with that last part. Corbett picked up another nickname: Lincoln's Avenger.

The fame had a double edge to it. Southerners routinely sent him death threats, so he made sure to be armed at all times. When discharged he went back to being a hatter but kept getting fired for stopping work to pray. When he could no longer find work as a milliner he capitalized on his fame and gave lectures and such, almost like the Coward Robert Ford did after killing Jesse James. But due to his fame and the threats to his life and the constant stream of being fired, he became paranoid, and his speeches became more incoherent as he ranted and raved at anyone who would listen.

In 1875, while attending a soldiers' reunion, one of the men expressed his doubt that Booth had even been killed. This enraged Corbett to the point of him pulling his gun on the accuser. The others rushed him out of there. Like when someone told Buzz Aldrin that the moon landing was faked. Aldrin and Corbett didn't respond well to such accusations.

In a last ditch effort at a normal life Corbett was given a job as the doorkeeper of the Kansas House of Representatives, but his paranoia got the better of him. He thought the Representative officers were after him, so he brandished his gun and chased after them. He didn't hurt anyone, but that was enough for a judge to sentence him to a mental institute in Topkea.

In 1888, around the time Billy the Kid was fighting a war in Lincoln County, AZ, Corbett escaped from the asylum on horseback. He was last seen in Neodesha, KS, where he stayed with a farmer before moving on to Mexico, or so the farmer said. People speculated that he'd actually gone to Minnesota where he died in the Great Hinckley Fire. Why speculated? Because if the story about Mexico is true, he did exactly what Ambrose Bierce did decades later: he went to Mexico and was never seen again.

Bizarrely there were two people who later claimed to be Corbett, one of them as late as 1905, but both were dismissed as fakes and were imprisoned.

So what really happened to the man who shot John Wilkes Booth? No one knows. But it's a strange way to end the strange tale of Thomas H. "Boston" Corbett.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #790: TIME IS A FLAT CIRCLE

 

There aren't a lot of photographs of Abraham Lincoln delivering speeches. In fact, there's only one. On March 4, 1865, he delivered his second inaugural speech from the picture seen above. I know it's a little hard to see specifics, but maybe this close up will help:

You can read the full speech here. It's a good one. So good they inscribed it on the Lincoln Memorial with the Gettysburg Address. I can't imagine any modern president giving a speech like this.

He had 41 days to live.

On March 11 he issues Proclamation 124, pardoning any and all deserters of the Union Army provided they return to their posts within a certain time. The war seemingly is running its toll on the nation. Keep in mind that Virginia, a Confederate state, is not that far from Washington, DC.

On March 14 he issues an executive order on the subject of retaliation. For every Union soldier killed, a Confederate soldier must also be killed. For every Union soldier taken into slavery, a Confederate soldier must be captured and put to hard labor until his corresponding soldier is set free. This is possibly the president who wanted peace more than any other president in history. To resort to this must have been like acid in his bloodstream. A necessary evil? If only he knew what would happen in less than a month.

On March 17 he addresses the Indiana regiment, pumping them up for winning the war. He mentions that Confederates are pressing 1 out of 4 slaves into fighting the war for them. Looking back on the speech with modern eyes is a definite collar-puller, though. You can read it here. Lincoln may have been the best of the presidents, but he was far from perfect.

On March 27 he issues an executive order to raise the American flag at Ft. Sumter, won back by William "War is Hell" Sherman. If you don't know, that's where the Civil War officially began when Confederates raided the fort. The very same commander who lost the fort was the man to raise the flag over it again. It was a symbolic gesture to show that the war was finally going well for the North.

On April 3 the Union sounds the death knell for the South by taking Richmond, just a hop skip and jump from the White House. The very next day Lincoln visits Richmond without fear for his life.

On April 9 it happens. Robert E. Lee surrenders the Confederacy to Ulysses S. Grant, thus ending the Civil War.

On April 11 Lincoln makes his final speech on the White House lawn. It's his victory lap, but it's also about what the country needs to do next: Reconstruction. He talks about not just throwing the Confederates in the trash because that's where they belong. He talks about reform. Healing. Helping them become better people. As one can imagine, that doesn't sit well with many people. One person in particular. You can read this speech here. It's also a good one. A little awkward, again by modern judgment, but still good.

On April 14, 41 days after his second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln goes to Ford's Theater for a play called Our American Cousin. He sits in the balcony overlooking the stage. He doesn't sense a shadowy figure behind him. He may not even hear the sound of a pistol going off. The bullet soars out of the gun and plants itself in the back of Lincoln's head.

Stop.

Let's take that bullet out of Lincoln's skull and put it back in John Wilkes Booth's gun. Let's walk him back out of the balcony. Back to the saloon where he spent the intermission. Back to earlier in the day when he told his co-conspirators that Lincoln was going to be at the theater that night. He sent someone to kill Secretary of State Sewell and one to kill Vice President Johnson. Go back earlier in the day to when Booth showed up at Ford's Theater to pick up his mail, to when he was told that Lincoln would be attending the play that night.

Back to April 12 when he learns of Lee's surrender at Appomattox. He tells others that he's planning to retire from the stage to focus only on Venice Preserv'd, a play about assassination. Because now he knows that Lincoln must die. This is when he makes the decision.

Back to April 11 as he watches Lincoln from the White House lawn giving a speech about winning the Civil War and the Reconstruction that must follow. As Booth learns that Lincoln intends to give slaves rights, he vows that this will be Lincoln's final speech.

It is.

Back to March 17 when Booth learns that Lincoln will attend a play called Still Waters Run Deep at Soldier's Home. Booth immediately plots to kidnap Lincoln and even puts his men on the road to Soldier's Home. Lincoln never shows. As we know from above, he was too busy on that day for theater.

Back to March 5 when he boasts to friends about how close he was to Lincoln the previous day. "What an excellent chance I had to kill the president," he tells them.

Because go back to that first picture. It's hard to see, but Booth wasn't lying about being close to Lincoln that day:

Look a little closer.

Time is a flat circle.