Luther Baker - Boston Corbett - Abe Lincoln

[Craig Hipkins]

Herb, That story has been floating around for years. Once again, I believe the source of that story was Edward Kirk. Kirk writes:

At dress parade the regiment was formed at parade rest. When the Colonel Butterfield made a speech to the men-in regard to the practice of some of the men-whenever-a bayonet sheath, belt, cap, pouch or other article would be missing, they would toss up a penny, call heads, until it would come so and take it saying they had won it. The colonel was quite justly angered and used some language which was forcible and perhaps not polite. When Corbett stepped out, two paces in front of his company and said that the language used by the Colonel in his peroration showed that he was not fit to command a Regiment because he could not control himself. Of course he was wrong in this and was at once placed in the guard house but afterwards released in a very short time by the Colonel himself.

A lot of material about Corbett was taken from an early biographer of his, Byron Berkeley Johnson, who in turn got a lot of his information from another Corbett biographer Francis Leupp. I believe that this is where the "court martial" story got started. Johnson wrote:

[/i]Before the 12th was mustered out, its colonel being angered by the careless obedience of a few of the men, cursed them in public. Corbett stepped from the ranks and calmly protested such abuse, with the result that he landed in the guard house, from which he emerged smiling, saying he had had a "good time with his God and his Bible"
It is told that "he was very insistent of his rights-in the New York 12th he was being sent out to do some duty which would extend beyond the hour of the expiration of his enlistment-that he called the attention of his Captain and notified him he should quit the duty when his enlistment expired; that he did so-was court-martialed, ordered to be shot but was reprieved and drummed out of Camp"
This was during his first enlistment. The fact that immediately after his first term he was reenlisted again with a promotion and received three honorable discharges shows that the court martial story is a fiction."[i]

So even Johnson, writing in 1914 concedes that the court martial story is a "fiction." It seems to me that there were a lot of fictional tales surrounding Corbett after he cemented his name into the history books. His elusive, eccentric and enigmatic nature probably contributed to these rumors and stories.

Craig

[HerbS]

1.I have now found more evidence on Corbett-"Crazy Boston Corbett killed John Wilkes Booth".History Net.com by Eric Niderost.2."The Man Who Shot Lincoln"-The American Scholar.Just Google-Boston Corbett.