The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1881-08-09
BOSTON
Strange Fate of the Man who Killed
Lincoln's Assassin

In all printed accounts of the pursuit and
capture of Booth, Corbett's name is carefully
left out, as if "Hamlet" were left ont from
the play of Hamlet. His share of the rewart
paid for the capture of Booth some parolcd
rebels took violently from Corbett's person
the day he got it. The pistol with which he
shot Booth, and which no money could have
bought, was stolen from him at the
of bis arrest. aud no trace OF it has ever been
found. Corbett became the target for envy
and detraction, settling down into unmeas-
ured contempt among his officers. He was
hunted out of the army, as if he were the as
sassin and Booth the hero. lie las been per-
secuted every day and hour since. He is to-
day the most miserable of men, with nothing
left him but the comforts of religion. He is
a halter by trade, and yet cannot remain long
in one place. Somehow they will not let
him rest. He is pursued by threatening let
tiers every day, receiving no less than a dozen
like this when he was here:
HE'LL, September l, lS74.-Bost0n Cor
bet: Nemesis is on your path.
}. WILKES BoorH.
He is iiasulted wherever he appears in pub
LEON the cars, at hotels or on steamers. or
in public halls. The contempt shown him by
leading officers communicated itself to the
people, and they initiate it as they always
do. For years he had a mission school of
ragged gamins from the cutters of Philadel-
phia, and was promptly at his post every Sun
day trying to save the young scamps. without
reward or the hope thereof. He occasionally
breaches, and breaches with more than ordi-
nary good sense, too, for l have often heard
him. He never drank a drop of intoxicating
liquor, or was ever suspected or accused of
the slightest indiscretion. His private life is
as good and as clean as that of any man in
the United States, l care not who he IS. He
has "a fair education and a well-balanccd
person. There is nothing of the ego list,
nothing Of the fool or hypocrite about HIM.
Yet he is a man of more than ordinary zeal
in religion. His place is never vacant in
church or Sunday school or pra~yer-meeting.
lie fills ali the conventional requirements of
ooCldl ~ anu Is DIS pledSdlt d companion 1Or
all evenings chat as you will meet anywhere.
IeC he is hated by one half of the Ameri-
lean people and despised 10y the other half
for the only crime ever yet alleged against
him-that he shot John Wilkes Booth, the as
sassin of Abraham Lincoln, and shot him
dead i'll an obscure country barn. This was
his supreme offense. He robbed the naughty
officers of a play where they would have all
been star actors. He is unmarried, poor and
despised. He bears it meekly and uncom-
p~lalnlngly, and more of these facts were
gathered from observation than from his lips.
lie is slow to speak of these things, except to
friends, in answer to urgent inquiries such as
/ puL to him to find out why he is SO cruelty
used by the people who owe him such a debt
OF G gratitude and respect. In Greece and
Rome, even in England and France, the aveng-
ers OF their sOvereign's death were loaded
with gifts and public honors. Not SO Corbett.
He is reviled as a lunatic and laughed at as a
rash religious fool, this is the secret of the
whole matter, and have had some opportu-
mites to study it. He offended the Rebels
and Copperheads by killingthe man they still
adore, and he offended high officials at Wash
ington by depriving them of the glory and
publicity of a state trial that sbould have
made them conspicuous figures in history.
That is all there is to it. 1t is cruel and un-
just, and history will yet rectify the mistake
and award Boston Cortett the honor due him.
- prirUfe DnI,eV In GvoroIond Joodas