The man who shot John Wilkes Booth had previously castrated himself for God, survived Andersonville Prison, and eventually vanished from a Kansas asylum never to be seen again.
Boston Corbett was the Union soldier who shot John Wilkes Booth on April 26, 1865, in a burning Virginia barn — but the man who pulled that trigger had one of the strangest biographies in American history. Born in London, he immigrated to the U.S. as a child and became a hat maker, a trade that exposed him to mercury fumes believed to have contributed to his later mental instability.
After his wife died in 1856, Corbett found religion and became a fervent Methodist street preacher. In 1858, believing it would help him resist temptation while preaching among prostitutes, he castrated himself with scissors — then calmly ate dinner, attended a prayer meeting, and sought medical attention only afterward.
During the Civil War Corbett was captured by Confederate forces and sent to Andersonville Prison, one of the war's most notorious death camps. He survived its brutal conditions and returned to service, eventually joining the 16th New York Cavalry — the regiment that would hunt down Booth.
When soldiers cornered Booth in the barn at Garrett Farm, orders were to take him alive. Corbett fired anyway, shooting Booth through a crack in the barn wall with his revolver. He claimed God directed his hand. Secretary of War Stanton reportedly said Corbett had 'spared the country expense, continued excitement and trouble' and let the matter drop.
Corbett received $1,653 of the $100,000 reward and became briefly famous as 'Lincoln's Avenger,' giving lectures about Booth's death. But his mental state deteriorated — he carried a pistol everywhere, threatened people he suspected of plotting against him, and was eventually committed to a Kansas insane asylum.
In May 1888, Corbett escaped the asylum on horseback and vanished completely. He was never definitively found. For decades people claimed he died in the Great Hinckley Fire of 1894, but genealogical research in 2024 confirmed that victim was a different man entirely. The fate of the man who shot Lincoln's assassin remains unknown.