Boston Corbett

[maharba]

That's a lively article, and about certainly a bizarre little fellow,
Thomas Corbett aka Boston Corbett. He was born in england and his parents supposedly first show up with him in Troy,NY. The research I've tried on Thomas Corbett has not been productive. He was supposely married in or near Troy, Ny and his young wife died in childbirth with I suppose the child dying stillborn. I have never been able to find a marriage for him or a name of a wife, just the 'copy-over' listings telling us that this surely was the case. Yet, it seems odd that even his original Baptismal Certificate exists and is viewable online. Doesn't it seem to you that some reporter would have thought to ask about his wife, her name, her parents? When he became famous and was on a short term lecture circuit. I wonder what Abraham Lincoln himself would have thought about all this circus, and this clown Boston Corbett which followed his death: Lincoln's Avenger couldn't apparently phrase a sensible narrative but would burst out instead into yelling 'religious slogans'. I believe that (the atheist) Abraham Lincoln would have had a long enjoyable laugh at the turn of affairs. Some hypotheticals I am looking at here are: That the whole crew who went out to 'capture Booth' instead intended to kill Booth. And that by killing Booth they would 'lock in' the entire reward to their outfit. That is, in case they were ordered to hand over (a living John Wilkes Booth) to a superior Union outfit, then no one could claim to usurp the reward from them: Booth was already dead and the credit for killing him must go to them (via Boston Corbett). Another is that the rest of his life Boston Corbett was followed by threatening letters and some of them signed as John Wilkes Booth. (Nemesis is on your track. Nemesis is on your path, etc.) It would be fascinating to see the actual letters that Boston Corbett was receiving, and to know the various persons sending him the threatening letters. Another item is what did Boston Corbett receive for murdering Booth (or Boyd or whoever he shot)? I think it was $1,000 and that all of most of it was stolen from him by southern-sentiment soldiers. Another is that Corbett had claimed he would first proclaim "May God have mercy on your soul" before shooting. Did he say that, before he shot Booth in the back? Another item: did Boston Corbett escape the Ks Insane Asylum only to later die a horrifying death in the great Hinckley Fire of Pine County Minnesota in 1894? I think that Corbett was a survivor, he would have realized that he had many enemies in Kansas and would have headed towards Denver and the NorthWest.