of the 26th. The men were posted around the tobacco shed
in which Booth and Herold were secreted and their surrender was
demanded by Conger. Booth refused to surrender and tendered, as a
counter proposition, a personal contest with the entire force. Herold
surrendered. Upon Booth's persistent refusal to surrender, a fire was
lighted in a corner of the building. Booth then came forward with his
carbine in his hand and engaged in a conversation with Lieut. L. Byron
Baker. While so engaged a musket was fired from the opposite side of
the shed and Booth fell, wounded fatally in the neck, at or near the
spot where Mr. Lincoln had been struck. Conger had given orders to the
men not to shoot under any circumstances. The examination disclosed
the fact that the shot was fired by a sergeant, named Boston Corbett.
When Colonel Conger asked Corbett why he shot without orders Corbett
saluted the colonel and said: "Colonel, Providence directed me."
Thus the parallel runs. Booth claimed that he was the instrument of
the Almighty in the assassination of Lincoln, and Boston Corbett
claimed that he acted under the direction of Providence when he shot
Booth.

Booth was shot at about three o'clock in the morning of April 26, and
he died at fifteen minutes past seven. During that time he was
conscious for about three fourths of an hour. He asked whether a
person called Jett had betrayed him. His only other intelligible
remark was this:

"Tell my mother I died for my country."

During the afternoon preceding the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, Booth
met John Matthews a brother actor, and requested him to hand a letter
to Mr. Coyle, of the _National Intelligencer,_ the next morning.
Mathews had a part in the play at Ford's Theater. When the shot was
fired and Mathews was changing his dress to leave the theater, he
discovered the letter, which for the time he had forgotten. When he
reached his rooms he opened the letter. It contained an avowal of
Booth's purpose to murder the President, and he named three of his
associates. Booth referred to a plan that had failed, and he then
added: "The moment has at length arrived when my plans must be
changed." These statements were made by Mathews from recollection.
Mathews destroyed the letter under the influence of the apprehension
that its possession would work his ruin.

The records seem to warrant certain conclusions:

1. That the Confederate authorities at Richmond made a pla