Q1: Did anyone else die during the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth?
Yes. While Booth and Herold were the primary targets, the intensive military pursuit carried a grim toll. On the night of April 23, 1865, the steam tug Blackstone collided with the transport steamer Massachusetts on the Potomac River. The transport was carrying Union soldiers assigned to patrol the waterways for Booth. Eighty-seven men drowned in the collision, marking one of the deadliest single incidents connected to the Lincoln manhunt.
Q2: What happened to Boston Corbett, the man who shot Booth?
Corbett received his share of the reward money, $1,653.84, and was discharged from the army in August 1865. His mental health deteriorated rapidly due in part to mercury poisoning from his earlier work as a hatter. In 1887, after pulling a revolver on the Kansas House of Representatives while working as an assistant doorkeeper, he was committed to the Topeka Asylum for the Insane. He escaped on horseback in 1888 and vanished into history, presumed to have died in the Great Hinckley Fire of 1894 in Minnesota.
Q3: Has Booth's body ever been exhumed to perform modern DNA tests?
No. In 1995, descendants of Booth's brother Edwin petitioned the Baltimore Circuit Court to exhume the remains at Green Mount Cemetery to conduct modern DNA testing and clear up lingering urban legends. Judge Joseph H.H. Kaplan rejected the petition, ruling that the historical evidence of Booth's burial was overwhelmingly sound and that exhuming the crowded, unmarked family plot would risk damaging nearby graves without providing necessary forensic utility.
