Hunting Lincoln's Killer: A Canadian Officer Led the Expedition to Capture the American President's Assassin

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
Hunting Lincoln's Killer: A Canadian Officer Led the Expedition to Capture the American President's Assassin
Abstract
The Quebec-born and educated Edward Paul Doherty (1838-1897) moved to New York in 1860 and in 1861 enlisted as a Private in the northern army in the civil war that had just broke out in the United States in April of that year. On April 26, 1865, Doherty, now a Lieutenant, led the detachment of soldiers that cornered and killed John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, in a Virginia barn, twelve days after Booth had fatally shot the U.S. President. (It was Boston Corbett, one of the soldiers in the detachment, that shot Booth.) Little is known of Doherty’s life in Canada, other that he was born in Wickham, Quebec, in 1838, educated in Montreal and studied law with a Montreal firm before moving to New York. However, he did write a series of letters printed in the Montreal Gazette, titled "Letter From The Seat of War, From A Montrealer In The U.S. Army."
Publication
Canada's History
Date
April-May 2023
Pages
14-21
Language
en
Citation
Sher, Julian. “Hunting Lincoln’s Killer: A Canadian Officer Led the Expedition to Capture the American President’s Assassin.” Canada’s History, May 2023.
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