The Insane Story of the Guy Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln
At Washingtonian, Bill Jensen recounts the life of Boston Corbett, the born-again Christian and Civil War veteran who shot and killed John Wilkes Booth. Rash and alienating, sure of being stalked by Southern sympathizers and assassins, Corbett quickly lost his initial folk hero status, Jensen writes. “In Greece and Rome, even in England and France, the avengers of their sovereign’s death were loaded with gifts and public honors,” wrote Corbett’s friend Private Dalzell. “Not so Corbett. He is reviled as a lunatic and laughed at as a rash religious fool.”