Sic Semper Sicarius

Sic Semper Sicarius - Thus Always to Assassins

He knew he should be scared, but truth be told, he was not afraid of dying. After what he did he knew that he would be hunted down. “Dead or alive, they say,” he laughed. “I think they will act as if it’s Dead or Dead. What about you David? Are you ready to die in this barn? Is this old barn the kind of place you expected to spend the last hours of your life in?”

David looked around him. There was an old dilapidated cart in the corner, a table with a hammer and a rusty rasp on it, a disused lantern on the floor by a sack of corn. “John, you can die here if you want to. But I think I’d rather surrender and take my chances in the courtroom. Hell, I might even get a jury that would let me go. Only thing I done wrong was hang out and run with you. You know that I agree with what you done, but the fact is, you’re the one who shot him, right there in front of God and everybody. And probably half the people that saw you knew your name. Yep. You’re famous. Me, I’m a nobody, I think I’d rather take my chances.”

A shout, “You are surrounded. Lay down your weapons and come out with your hands up.”

“So what do you think our chances are?” David. “You think those troops out there would really just let us walk out of here and arrest us? Don’t you think one of those boys would pull the trigger and make himself famous by shooting us? And frankly my leg is in terrible pain. That crutch Sam’s friend made for me helps, but I don’t think my leg has very many steps left in it.”

Another shout, “ If you don’t come out in five minutes, we are going to burn you out.” John and David could hear movement around the barn, a distant whinny of a horse, the sound of metal striking metal as troops with their rifles changed their positions outside the barn.

“I think Mr. Garrett would be mighty upset with us if they torch his barn. He ain’t done nothing but let two travellers get some rest in his barn, and for his trouble his barn gets burned down. That don’t seem right to me. Maybe we should do as they say and give ourselves up, John?”

“Uh oh, Looks like it might be too late, David. It’s beginning to smoke in here.”

“Damn,” David said.” as a gunshot reverberated through the barn.

“Too late for me, '' John said as he looked at the blood soaking his clothing from a neck wound.

David grabbed John’s weapon and his own so that they could be seen on the floor when he opened the barn door to surrender.

“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, I’m coming out. John’s shot and bleeding, but I’m coming out. Our weapons are on the floor where you can see them.”

David pushed open the barn door, raised his hands high, and cautiously exited the barn, all the while shouting, “ John’s shot. Don’t shoot, I’m unarmed, don’t shoot.”

He was immediately roughly grabbed and taken into custody, Other troops grabbed John, still alive, but bleeding and in critical condition, and carried him to the porch of Garrett’s farmhouse. Two hours later, John Wilkes Booth died, on the porch of Garrett’s farm house near Port Royal Virginia.

Sergeant “Boston” Corbett, although under orders to not shoot, shot Booth through a crack in the barn's planking.

David Herold was tried and hanged along with Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, and Mary Suratt on July 7 1865.

Lee surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, 1865.

Booth shot Lincoln April 14 1865 at Ford's Theatre. Lincoln died the next day.

Booth, age 26, died April 26, 1865.