Useless Useless

On April 26^th 1865, Union soldiers caught up with John Wilkes Booth at the Garrett Farm, and killed him.

Union Lieutenant Colonel Everton Conger learned through interrogation that John Wilkes Booth and David E Herold were at the Richard Garrett Farm near Port Royal, Virginia.  In the early morning hours of April 26^th 1865 Conger accompanied 25 Union soldiers from the 16^th New York Cavalry commanded by Lieutenant Edward P Doherty. They surrounded the tobacco barn that Booth and Herold were hiding in, and demanded their surrender.  Herold gave himself up, but Booth refused, so the soldiers set the barn on fire.

Booth could be seen moving around inside the burning barn.  Union Sergeant Boston Corbett, claimed to have seen Booth raise a gun to shot, and so he fired at Booth. The shot struck Booth in the neck.  He was dragged from the barn and placed on the porch of the Garrett farmhouse.  The bullet had gone through several vertebrae and partially severed his spinal cord.  As he got close to dying, Booth said, "Tell my mother I died for my country."  He then asked that his hands be held up where he could see them and said his last words, "Useless, useless."  It took him three hours to die.

In Booth’s pockets were the pictures of five different women, a candle, a compass, and his diary.  In the diary Booth had written of President Abraham Lincoln, "Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment."

To read some eyewitness accounts of The Death of John Wilkes Booth check this web site.

Although Excused From Duty

Civil War Medal of Honor award honoree John James Toffey died March 13th 1911.

John James Toffey was born June 1st 1844 in Pawling, New York. He joined the 21st New Jersey Volunteer Infantry as a Private on August 28th 1862. The 21st was a nine month regiment. Toffey received a commission to First Lieutenant in the 33rd New Jersey Volunteer’s in August of 1863. It was on November 23rd 1863 at the Battle of Missionary Ridge in Chattanooga Tennessee that Toffey earned the Medal of Honor for acts of bravery. Do to wounds he was discharged on June 2nd 1864 from the 33rd New Jersey, being placed in the Veteran Reserve Corps he continued to serve as a Lieutenant until 1866. Toffey was at Ford’s Theater and witnessed Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. He joined in the search for John Wilkes Booth and his conspirators, and testified at the trial.

Following the war Toffey went into public service. He served as the Hudson County, New Jersey Sheriff, an Alderman for Jersey City,New Jersey, and was a member of the New Jersey State Legislature. Toffey received the Congressional Medal of Honor on September 10th 1897, the citation reads; “Although excused from duty on account of sickness, went to the front in command of a storming party and with conspicuous gallantry participated in the assault of Missionary Ridge; was here wounded and permanently disabled“. He died March 13th 1911 in Pawling New York.