On April 14th, 1865, less than a week after the Civil War officially ended, President Abraham Lincoln was shot in the back of the head while watching a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC.
The assassin, actor, and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis! (Ever thus to tyrants!) The South is avenged,” as he leaped onto the stage from Lincoln’s elevated box seat, breaking his leg.
He rode off into the night on horseback, disappearing from the city.
Most Americans know what happened the night of Lincoln’s assassination. But many don’t know what happened in the days following, how Booth hid, and how he was finally killed.
In this article, ill highlight all the notable locations involving the escape of John Wilkes Booth, and show you how to visit them yourself.
Table of Contents
The Star Saloon
We begin our journey just before the assassination, next door to Ford’s Theatre at The Star Saloon. John Wilkes Booth is hitting the sauce in preparation for executing his grand assassination plan.
Mr. Booth wasn’t the only notable person drinking there that night. Lincoln’s coachman, as well as his valet, were there too. Some stories even say that the soldier who was supposed to be guarding the entrance to Lincoln’s box seat was there after being dismissed by the President himself.
I think it’s safe to say that soldier sucked at his job.
John Wilkes Booth would use the passageway that attached the saloon and the theatre to begin implementing his plan.
I know this article is supposed to be about where John Wilkes Booth went after the assassination, but consider this and the next section a little bonus.
Visiting
The Star Saloon has somewhat of a complicated history following that fateful night.
It was closed shortly after the assassination and became many different businesses during the following decades until the building was demolished in 1930.
However, in 1963, the U.S. Government decided to restore Ford’s Theatre and rebuild the saloon. Unfortunately, as of today, that building is used as an office and storage space, so public entry is forbidden.
Even if entry was allowed, it’s not the same building that stood on the night of the assassination, so there’d be no point in entering anyway.
Ford’s Theatre
John Wilkes Booth slithers his way towards Lincoln’s box seat; very soon, the President of the United States will die.
On April 14th at approximately 10:15 pm, during the second act of the show “Our American Cousin,” John Wilkes Booth waited for the crowd to erupt in laughter after a joke on stage to make his move.
He snuck behind Lincoln and fired a small derringer pistol point blank into the back of his head, severely wounding the President. Booth also stabbed Henry Rathbone, a young army officer watching the show with Lincoln, in the arm.
After jumping from the balcony onto the stage and breaking his leg, Booth escaped out the back of the theatre, where he had arranged for a horse to be waiting for him. He rode off into the night, heading south to arm himself, knowing full well that the might of the Union army would be after him.
Lincoln’s body was carried across the street to the Peterson House, where he died shortly after.
Visiting
Modern-day Washington, D.C., is a treasure trove of history with countless museums, like the world-renowned Smithsonian. If you can fit it in, stepping back in time at Ford’s Theatre is a one-of-a-kind experience.
In my opinion, standing in the spot where such a significant historical event occurred is just as or if not more powerful than, seeing an artifact in a museum.
Ford’s Theatre is located at 511 10th St NW, Washington, DC 20004. It is open most days from 9 am to 4 pm, but it’s advised to check their calendar as these times may vary.
Take a historical tour of the theatre and enjoy the museum inside. Some dates also include a 40-minute, one-act performance of “One Destiny,” a play in which two witnesses to the assassination tell their story.
Admission to the theatre and museum costs $3.50 at the time of writing. The show costs $11.00
It is also said that Ford’s Theatre is haunted, but this being an article written under the “Crime” category, those stories will have to wait for a future article.
To plan your visit to the theatre, you can click this link; https://fords.org/calendar/. You can also purchase tickets to the Peterson House Museum with this link.
Surratt Tavern
As Booth rode through the night, his leg throbbing and his adrenaline pumping, he headed south to an arranged meeting place with fellow Confederate sympathizer and co-conspirator David Herold.
While Booth was giving Lincoln a headache, Herold was helping another conspirator by the name of Lewis Powell attempt to kill the secretary of state. It failed, and Herold ran off to meet Booth.
The Surratt Tavern, owned then by widow Mary Surratt, was a humble structure where a traveler could rest, eat, and spend the night. But on that night, it served a different purpose.
Mary had left weapons and supplies for Booth to pick up after he shot the President to better aid in his survival against the elements and, of course, the Army now searching the state for him.
Later, after Booth was killed (spoiler alert), Mary Surratt was arrested, tried, and ultimately executed for being a conspirator in the plot to kill Lincoln. She became the first woman to be executed in United States history.
Visiting
The Surratt House Museum is located at 9118 Brandywine Rd. Clinton, MD 20735. It is open Thursday through Sunday from 11 am to 4 pm as of the writing of this article.
You can visit their website using this link https://www.surrattmuseum.org/.
The website seems a bit broken, leading to an error message when reserving a time to visit or purchasing tickets.
The Surratt House Museum also offers a John Wilkes Booth escape bus tour, but their website states that tours have been canceled, so I don’t know what’s going on with this place. Check for yourself; the site might be fixed when you read this.
Dr. Samuel A. Mudd Home
Once the supplies and weapons are retrieved, Booth’s focus turns to his leg, which has been broken for hours, with nothing but adrenaline to help the pain. Not to mention, he’s been riding a horse all this time; that couldn’t have felt good.
Booth and Samuel Mudd knew each other before the assassination, which is how Booth knew precisely where to go to have his leg mended.
Mudd agreed to set Booth’s broken leg, even while knowing the man he was treating was the assassin of the President (Booth had told Mudd about his plan prior).
Dr. Mudd let Booth and David Herold rest for some time before they set off down a dirt road to further distance themselves from the crime scene.
According to some sources, Mudd eventually contacted authorities to tell them the fugitives “may” have passed through his property.
After being interrogated, the truth came out, and Dr. Mudd was arrested as a conspirator in the assassination and given a hefty prison sentence. Unlike Mary Surratt, he was not executed and was released from prison early.
Visiting
The Dr. Samual Mudd House Museum is located at 3725 Dr. Samuel Mudd Rd, Waldorf, Maryland.
The museum is open seasonally, spring through fall, on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 11 am to 4 pm as of the writing of this article.
A 30-45 minute length tour is included in admission, which costs $3.00 for children 6 to 12 or $10.00 for everyone else.
Reservations are not required for admission, but in case you want to do some research before you go, you can find the website by clicking this link: https://drmudd.org/
Rich Hill Farm
After departing the Mudd residence, John Wilkes Booth and David Herold got lost on their way to Rich Hill Farm, the home of known Confederate sympathizer Samuel Cox. It seems like this was a bad day to be named Samuel.
Booth and Herold paid a farmer to give them directions to the farm. Some accounts even suggest this farmer was a freed slave; talk about irony.
Cox agreed to help the two fugitives, but after feeding them a hot meal, Cox kicked them out, knowing the penalties he’d face if he were found harboring them, which sucks for him because he was arrested anyway in the following weeks.
However, Cox let them stay in a nearby pine thicket on his property. The pair camped here for four days as Union soldiers searched the state for them. According to Harold, soldiers were as close as 600ft to them at one point while they were hiding.
This is also where Booth found out that the people of America viewed him as a villain rather than the hero he had hoped for. This no doubt put a damper on his motivation.
When the time was right, John Wilkes Booth and David Harold, assisted by the Rich Hill Farm overseer Thomas Jones, were led to the Patomic River to continue their escape.
Visiting
Unfourtenetly, I couldn’t find much on the modern-day applications of Samuel Cox’s home. It is still standing and has a website but has not been active since 2017. Other sources cite that it is being restored.
Because of this, I wouldn’t seek out the building expecting a tour; for all I know, it could be a private residence now.
If anyone has any information on this home, please message me or leave a comment so I can update this article.
Here’s the website link if you’re curious: https://richhillfriends.org/
Popes Creek
This is where John Wilkes Booth and David Harold set off to cross the Potomac River into Virginia. The exact location is unknown, but some speculate it was near the current-day Loyola on the Potomac roman catholic retreat center.
Because the pair set off in the middle of the night, they again got lost and ended up back in Maryland even further North than they had been when they first set off!
It blows my mind these two didn’t get caught sooner.
Visiting
Popes Creek is an unincorporated community on the shores of the Potomac. The exact spot where the boat took off is lost to history, so there isn’t a reason to come here.
However, there is a restaurant called Capt. Billy’s Crab House with… mixed reviews. But hey, if you want seafood with a great river view, this place will do it for you. Just bring Tums!
Indiantown
The most overlooked spot of the assassin’s escape is the slave cabin where they stayed after mistakingly landing upriver and back in Mayland.
They weren’t exactly lost, even though they didn’t end up where they had initially planned. David Harold recognized the area from past hunting trips. They saw a house in the distance and headed towards it.
The man they made contact with was John J. Hughes; he was the tender of the Indiantown Farm, where the two had inadvertently ended up. Peregrine Davis, a former Confederate soldier, owned the farm, so naturally, Hughes offered the two some help.
He allowed them to stay in a former slave cabin on the property. They rested here for about 36 hours before returning to their boat and trying again to cross the Potomac into Virginia.
This hut was just about falling apart, so I’m not entirely sure what they did there all that time.
Visiting
This structure is on private property and not open to the public. However, it is right on the water, so if you can access a boat, you can get a good look at the cabin!
Gambo Creek
After leaving their humble accommodations in Maryland, the pair finally landed in Virginia at Gambo Creek. Throughout the day, they spoke with and met many people, none of whom wanted to help them.
After getting kicked out of two houses, Booth was somewhat cranky. So much so, he came across the tiny cabin of a freed slave, William Lucas, and his family and threatened them at gunpoint, forcing the family to allow Booth and Herold to spend the night.
The next day, the dynamic duo met with three former confederates at the ferry crossing between Port Conway and Port Royal, Virginia. One of the former soldiers, Willie Jett, helped find accommodations for Booth and Herold across the Rappahannock River at the Garret Farm.
Visiting
Because the pair spent such little time at the first two homes they visited and the Lucas cabin no longer stands, there’s not much to see here.
You can visit the site of the former ferry crossing; however, all that remains now is a bridge connecting the two towns.
Garret Farm
We’ve finally reached the end of this marvelous journey, the Garret Farm. This was the last place John Wilkes Booth and David Harold were ever seen before escaping and never being seen again. Just kidding, Harold is captured, and Booth is shot in the neck but sit tight; we’ll get to that.
Booth is able to stay at the farm that night under the fake name John W. Boyd while Harold continues to the next town over, Bowling Green. What a creative phony name; Lee Harvey Oswald (JFK’S assassin) should have just gone by Lee H. Osmosis and he would never have been found!
Booth wakes the next day and enjoys a peaceful morning full of scrambled eggs and fun games with the Garret children. Harold soon returns to the farm and ends the fun with news of Union soldiers searching nearby the farm.
This news makes one of the Garret children, Jack, suspicious of the two men and forces them to spend the night in the barn on the property. Meanwhile, in Bowling Green, Union soldiers found Willie Jett and interrogated him, forcing him to lead them to the farm.
At about 2 am the following day, Union soldiers arrived at the Garret Farm as directed by Jett. The Garrett child Jack informed the soldiers that the two fugitives were taking refuge in the barn. The soldiers surrounded the barn and demanded the two surrender.
Booth’s first contact with the soldiers was by asking them for an opportunity for a shootout, which they amazingly declined. I will admit, going out John Marston style would have been much better than what happened.
After negotiations went nowhere, the soldiers eventually decided to light the barn on fire to force them out. This somewhat worked because it caused David Harold to surrender, as Booth called him a coward and a traitor.
Booth was still so determined not to surrender that he began trying to stomp out the fire, which at this point was an inferno. One of the soldiers, Sergeant Boston Corbett, stuck the barrel of his gun through a crack and sent a bullet right through Booth’s neck, severing his spinal cord.
The soldiers entered the barn and dragged Booth out while trying to interrogate him. This, of course, didn’t go too well, as he was essentially paralyzed with a hole through his neck. He was laid out on the porch of the farmhouse.
In one of his last breaths, he said, “Tell my mother I died for my country.” I highly doubt she got the message. At 7:15 am, John Wilkes Booth died, and the manhunt for the man who killed Abraham Lincoln ended.
David Harold would be executed on July 7th, 1865, for his role in the conspiracy.
Visiting
This one bothers me because even though such a historical event occurred here, nothing remains of the Garret Farm. The only thing marking the spot is a sign on the side of the highway commemorating the event.
The farm was abandoned in the years after the event. People taking pieces of the structure for souvenirs didn’t help its condition. After the Army acquired the land, the house was torn down sometime in the late ’40s or early ’50s.
In Conclusion
The search for John Wilkes Booth and David Harold has come to be known as the largest manhunt in American history. They thought they’d be heroes but ultimately ended up as infamous villains.
In all, the pair traveled 90 miles during their escape. Although the location where the hunt ended is gone to history, many of the places they stopped at along their journey are still there today.
Suppose you’ve visited any of the places featured in this article, id love to hear about it. Send me a message or leave a comment below. Check out the locations on the destinations map for a better view and understanding using this link: https://spookietravel.com/destinations/
