The adventures of the crazy hatter Boston Corbett, or How the castrate avenged the assassination of the president

Many people remember the shot of the mafia nightclub owner Jack Ruby, who on November 24, 1963 took the life of Lee Harvey Oswald, who killed President John F. Kennedy. But almost no one knows that Ruby was not the first person in the United States who shot the murderer of the head of state. 100 years before the incident in Dallas, a man named Boston Corbett took revenge on the murderer of President Abraham Lincoln and his story is much more interesting.

Thomas Corbett was born in 1832 in England, in one of the poor areas of London. When Tommy was seven years old, his family crossed the ocean like many Europeans of that time in the hope of a better life. The immigrants chose to live in the small town of Troy in New York State, where many fortune seekers from Europe lived.

In Troy, young Corbett was sent to study in a hat workshop. The profession of a hatter was considered worthy and well paid, although it had some negative sides. The fact is that in the middle of the XIX century beaver hats were in fashion, the fur for which was soaked in a solution of mercury nitrate.

The process, in the circle of specialists, was called "carroting", as it gave the material a carrot shade. At that time, no one knew about the toxicity of mercury and this metal was used not only in the hat business, but also in medicine. It will take many years before people realize that mercury vapor kills, first gradually depriving a person of reason, and then destroying his internal organs.

For the occupational disease of hatmakers, they even came up with a special medical term — "eretism". But people spoke more simply, calling the victims of insidious mercury crazy hatters. The disease caused hallucinations, insomnia, anxiety and tremor, which was called "shaking the hatter."

The writer and mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known to us as Lewis Carroll, used the image of the mad hatter in his books about Alice in 1860. Most likely, the illness received while working in hat shops was the reason for Corbett's strange behavior, thanks to which he entered the history of the United States.

But the disease came gradually and for a long time the young hatter Thomas was full of strength and plans. He changed several workshops in different cities of the USA, gained experience and became a highly sought-after specialist in his field. In New York, a guy met a nice girl and soon the couple got married.

But fate was cruel to Corbett — just a year after the wedding, his wife died in childbirth. The tragedy hit Thomas, who quit his job, got drunk and began to wander. Constant libations aggravated the man's occupational disease and oddities gradually began to manifest themselves in his behavior.

For several years, Corbett wandered the East Coast without a purpose, sleeping on the streets and in shelters. But one day in Boston, Thomas met a street preacher whose speeches had a serious effect on the brain damaged by mercury and alcohol.

The former hatter joined the motley crowd of evangelists and since then has been constantly hanging around with their motley company on the streets, threatening passers-by with the Last Judgment and begging near taverns. Corbett's fanaticism was so great that he was invited to join the bosom of the Methodist Church and become a preacher.

So at the age of 26, Thomas stopped drinking and became a deeply religious person. He returned to his profession again and, as a sign of the beginning of a new life, changed his name, becoming Boston Corbett. The name at baptism of the newly-made brother in Christ was given by his co-religionists in honor of the city in which he embarked on the true path.

The man let go of his long hair and beard to look more solid and began to live with Christ in his soul. But Boston was not destined to find peace of mind. One day, when he was standing on a street corner on his day off and loudly called on the townspeople to repent, two prostitutes passed by, who playfully made an indecent offer to the preacher.

Filled with righteous anger, Corbett drove the harlots away, but to to his horror, he realized that their words and appearance had aroused him. Without delay, Boston went home, where he began to look for a solution in the New Testament. Unfortunately, a verse from the Gospel of Matthew came to the fanatic's eyes, which read: "If the right eye attracts you to sin, tear it out and throw it away, for it is better to lose a part of the body than to be thrown into hell."

Without thinking twice, Corbett grabbed his scissors for cutting the material and in one fell swoop cut off his genitals without any anesthesia. After the terrible operation, the crazy preacher went to the church, where he read all the prayers that are due to temptation. Only in the evening Corbett turned to the Massachusetts General Hospital for medical help.

In 1861, when the Civil War broke out, Boston Corbett returned to New York, where he got a job again at a hat factory. He also did not give up his missionary work and spent all his free time walking the streets of the city and singing psalms.

But one day, during the night prayer, Boston suddenly realized that it was simply obliged to protect its constitutional freedoms from the encroachments of the Confederates. The next morning Corbett went to the recruiting office, where he enlisted in the Union Army as a volunteer.

At first, colleagues made fun of a strange fighter who prayed all his free time, and during the attack shouted to the enemy, "May the Lord forgive your souls." But soon Boston was respected for his courage, discipline and broad outlook.

But Corbett could not become a model soldier precisely because of his pathological piety. He did not tolerate foul language in his presence and constantly made remarks both to other soldiers and to high authorities. Because of this, he was in bad standing with the commanders and once even got into the guardhouse.

Once he was almost shot for insubordination, but, obviously understanding his unusual condition, he was pardoned and kicked out of the regiment. This did not break Corbett and he immediately enlisted in the 16th New York Cavalry Regiment and continued his service.

In the summer of 1864, the Boston detachment was surrounded and found itself in a desperate situation. But the brave hatter responded to the offer to lay down his arms with 12 shots, part of which reached the goal. The Southerners twisted the hero and wanted to shoot him on the spot, but God loves crazy people and before the massacre it was decided to send the prisoner to the Andersonville camp, in Georgia.

It was a real concentration camp for Yankee prisoners, designed for 10 thousand people. But more than 30 thousand unfortunate people who suffered from hunger, diseases and bullying of Southerners were housed in the fenced territory in unthinkable conditions. More than 13 thousand prisoners never left Andersonville, remaining in its mass graves.

But Boston Corbett survived here — in the late autumn of the same 1864, the Confederates exchanged him for their prisoner. During several months of camp life, the man acquired scurvy, fever, rheumatism and dysentery. He felt the consequences of captivity for the rest of his life.

The Northerners greeted Corbett as a hero, awarding him the rank of sergeant and after the hospital gave him the opportunity to continue serving in the same 16th Cavalry regiment. Boston was still serving when John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln in Ford's Theater, fatally wounding him.

Shouting the slogan "Sic semper tyrannis!" over the defeated politician ("I always bring death to tyrants!"), Booth mixed with the dumbfounded crowd and, taking advantage of the confusion, disappeared. He managed to break away from his pursuers even though he broke his leg jumping out of the presidential box.

It took the authorities 10 days to get on the trail of the killer. The commander of the operation to capture Booth, Lieutenant Edward Doherty, learned from his informants that the state criminal was hiding in Virginia. Troops were involved in the operation to capture the villain, including the 16th regiment in which Corbett served.

The Northerners went to Virginia on steamboats and began combing farms and towns in search of a hidden criminal. Soon their efforts were crowned with success — Booth and his accomplice David Harold were found on the farm of a certain Richard Garrett, located near the town of Port Royal.

The fugitives were holed up in a tobacco storage barn and flatly refused to give up. The military did not dare to storm the building, from which the entire courtyard was perfectly shot through, and began negotiations with the besieged. After hours of exhortation, Harold was lured out, who threw down his weapon and went out to the soldiers.

But Booth had nothing to lose and he persisted. It is possible that the president's killer was afraid that as soon as he showed up, patriotic northerners would immediately shoot him. He didn't know that in Washington demanded to take him alive to find out all the details of the conspiracy and arrange a show trial.

As it turned out, Booth was not afraid in vain. While he was shouting at Edward Doherty, Federal Agent Everton Conger got close to the barn and set it on fire. The dry barn burst into flames instantly and Booth had nothing left but to go out to the pursuers. But as soon as he straightened up to his full height and moved towards the gate of the building, Boston managed to take a bead on him through a gap between the boards. The former hatter was a good shooter and put Booth down with one shot.

The criminal was dragged out of the barn and saw that the bullet hit the neck — almost in the same place where Lincoln was fatally wounded. Corbett took this fact as a sign and exclaimed: "What an amazing God we got, God avenged Abraham Lincoln!"

Booth did not die immediately — he was paralyzed and he suffered and demanded to be finished off. But after living for several hours, despite the efforts of doctors, he died himself. Corbett earned the fame of an avenger, although he himself insisted during all interrogations that he fired, fearing for the soldiers subordinate to him. Boston claimed that he saw the gun in the hands of the killer and decided that he decided to break through with a fight.

At the same time, the sergeant claimed that he only wanted to wound Booth, but he bent down at the moment of the shot and the bullet hit much higher than the shooter expected. They wanted to shoot Corbett again for his arbitrariness, and again this fate passed him by. The sergeant was personally pardoned by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who himself interrogated Boston and was convinced of the legality of his actions.

Stanton's answer to reporters when asked about the reason for the pardon went down in history:

Boston was released, not only from custody, but also from military service. The minister, despite the pardon granted to Corbett, did not forgive him the death of Booth, who could become a trump card against Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

50 thousand dollars were promised for the capture of a live Booth, but Boston received only one and a half of them. Also, when he was discharged from the regiment, he was allowed to take a horse with him, to which the sergeant was strongly attached. Corbett returned to Boston, where honor and glory awaited him.

Portraits of the former hatter were printed on postcards, and journalists followed him around, demanding to retell the story of the fatal shot for Booth again and again. Surrounded by attention, Boston decided not to return to the profession of a hatter, but to start a career as a lecturer.

He began to travel around the United States, telling the public his story. But the speaker from a mentally ill retired sergeant was unimportant — Corbett spoke confusingly and constantly switched to Christian moralizing. Very soon, Americans lost interest in his ravings and Boston was left alone with memories and progressive madness.

He was overcome by paranoid thoughts that Booth's associates would track him down and kill him. He moved to Philadelphia and got a job as a preacher, but he got even worse in his new place. It seemed to Boston that Booth had survived and was hunting for him. Complicating the life of the madman was the fact that over time he had a lot of detractors who sent him threatening letters.

In 1878 , a completely distraught Corbett fled to Kansas and settled in a hole dug in the ground. Among the locals, Boston was reputed to be a dangerous psycho, since he did not part with two revolvers and loved to aim them at people. It all ended with the fact that the former hero was sent to a mental hospital, where he spent two years.

Once, during a walk, a crazy hatter saw a pony tied to the hospital fence, jumped into the saddle and disappeared. After that, the traces of the madman are lost — someone believes that Boston escaped to Mexico, something that it burned down during a forest fire in 1894. Most likely, we will never know how the crazy hatter who avenged his president ended his days.