The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-02-04
y. WrIKEs BooTH DEATH.


 E.P.Doherty--"Use seless, Useless!" His Last
 WOrds-The Assassin of President Lin
 coin Shot by Sergeant Boston Corbett to
 Prevent His Killing Captain Doherty.
 [From the New York Times.l
 John Wilkes Booths death was one of the most tragic events in the history Of this country. The officer who com handed the company of cavalry which tracked Booth to his hiding place after he had assassinated President Lincoln in April, 1865, lives in New York city. The circumstances leading up to and following the killing of Booth are as fresh in his memory as if they had happened yesterday. It was into his arms that Booth fell when shot.
 Edward F. Doherty, the general in- spector of paving in the department Of public works, lives at 54 East One Hun dred and Sixteenth street. He is com mander of Veteran Post 436, G. A. R., and grand marshal for the city and county of New York. At the time of President Lincoln's assassination he was in command of Company G, Six teenth New York Cavalry. He had not yet received his commission as captain, but had just been promoted from lieu tenancy in a company of the same regi- ment.
 His regiment was at the front, but the company was ordered to Washing ton to take part in the funeral of the martyr president. The company was quartered in Lafayette square, in Wash ington. During the exciting days fol- lowing the assassination, squads of troopers in Captain Doherty's company were ordered to accompany parties of detectives who were following every clue which might lead to Booths cap ture. It was tiresome work, and Cap tain Doherty said yesterday that the men in his command began to have very little faith in the detectives.
 One day Captain Doherty received an order from General Howard to report to Colonel Baker, the chief agent of the war department, with twenty-five men, well mounted. and with three days ra- tions and forage. What happened Cap tain Doherty tells as follows:
 'T reported, and Colonel Baker gave me the photographs of John Wilkes Booth, Daniel E. Harold, and the oth- CTS who were thought to be implicated.
 'I was ordered to go to Fredericlxs- burg, where no troops had yet been. l moved down to the Sixth street wharf, and Captain Allen of the quartermas- ter's department furnished me with the steamboat John s. Ide and the neces- sary forage and rations. I told the captain to take me down the river as far as the Aquia creek. On arriving near there told him to run up to Belle Plain. wrote an order to the captain directing him, after landing me, to an- chor out in the river and remain there until o'clock p. m. of April 26. If he did not hear from me by that time he was to report back to Captain Allen at Washington. This was at 12 o'clock midnight.
 Having landed I struck across the country to Port Conway, intending to go up the Rappahannock on the north side of the river. halted at o'clock in the morning for the men to fix their saddles. A negro came along and told me that a regiment had gone up to Fredericksburg several hours before. halted about o'clock that evening within mile of Port Conway, and or- dered the men to unstable and feed. rode down with the bugler to Port Con- way. Here were some women at the ferryman's house. I got into conversa- tion with them, and showed the photo graphs and others, which had received in Washington. The women picked out the photographs of Booth and Harold, and told me that they had been there the night before, and were going to hire Ako , trrI, hn I,1Irln q d of one of the women, to take them to Orange court house. They offered him l $1O. But Jett, Ruggles, and Bainbridge, | three of Mosby's men, rode up just then, l and one of them, think it was Jett, l recognized Harold as an old school | mate
 Harold took Jet to one side, and | told him that they were the murderers | of the president. Booth showed the tat {; tooed letters U. w. B. on his arm as a | means of Identification. The women | told me that Jett was courting young | woman named Goldman. whose father | was keeping a hotel at Bowling Green, | Va, and she had no doubt that they | had all gone there.
 Booth and Harold decided not to hire the ferryman, but to ride double with Mosby's men, and the party, the women said, rode away in the direction of Bowling Green.
 T sent my bugler after Sergeant Cor bett and the rest of the men. I told the woman to call her husband, who was out fishing. On his arrival sent him for a flatboat, which was on the other side of the Rappahannock river Meantime my men had ridden up. We were all ferried across to Port Royal. Only eight men and horses could cross at once, so the ferry had to make sev- eral trips before the company was all on the other side of the river. On the last trip arrested Rawlins, the ferry man. He got his horse out and I or dered him to guide me to the nearest road to Goldman's hotel in Bowling Green. It was fifteen miles away Get ting near to Bowling Green I left all except eight men in the outskirts of the town With this detail I surrounded Goldman's hotel. There, after some de- lay, arrested Jett This was about Jett denied all knowledge of Booth a first