19. Baker and Conger extracted Booth from the burning barn
The detectives entered the barn and dragged Booth away from the flames, while debating whether the actor, who was evidently paralyzed, had shot himself. Booth was carried to the base of the locust tree from which Richard Garrett had been threatened with hanging, less than an hour earlier. The President’s assassin struggled to speak, and Conger reported his words, which he repeated back to Booth to confirm, as “Tell mother, I die for my country”. The soldiers carried Booth to the Garrett porch, where he was given a pillow and lain on a mattress of straw. The actor could speak only in a weak whisper.
Corbett’s bullet, which had been fired against orders, had penetrated Booth’s neck, breaking several vertebrae. Booth attempted several times to cough, going so far as asking Conger to put pressure on his throat to help him, but he was unable to do so. Several times Booth asked the soldiers to kill him as the early morning moved towards the dawn; several times he was told that they wanted him to recover. Booth died just as the dawn was breaking on April 26, 1865, after a manhunt which lasted twelve days. The search for his killer took only minutes, Sergeant Corbett responded to a demand from his commander to know who fired the shot by replying “Providence directed me”.