A torch is thrown inside the barn. The straw catches immediately, illuminating the scene as clearly as if he were onstage. “I saw him standing upright,” one Colonel Conger says later, “leaning on a crutch. He looked so like his brother Edwin I believed for a moment the whole pursuit to have been a mistake.”

He’s shot through the neck by Sergeant Boston Corbett on instructions from God. “Tell my mother I die for my country,” John says. But when the dying takes more than three hours, he says, “Please kill me now.”

—

His diary, found on his body, becomes part of the court record.

On April 21st, he wrote:

After being hunted like a dog through swamps, woods, and last night being chased by gunboats till I was forced to return wet cold and starving, with every man’s hand against me, I am here in despair. And why; For doing what Brutus was honored for, what made Tell a Hero. And yet I for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew am looked upon as a common cutthroat . . .

. . . I think I have done well, though I am abandoned, with the curse of Cain upon me. When if the world knew my heart, that one blow would have made me great, though I did desire no greatness.

To night I try to escape these blood hounds once more. Who who can read his fate. God’s will be done.

I have too great a soul to die like a criminal. Oh may He, may He spare me that and let me die bravely.

I bless the entire world. Have never hated or wronged anyone . . .

v

All that remains is the going on.

—

Edwin is summoned to the capital to testify to John’s insanity. Apparently his testimony isn’t what was hoped for. He’s never called.

He thinks briefly about visiting the Sewards, with whom he once spent such a lovely evening, offering his sympathy. But the promises of continued friendship are surely moot now. Seeing him will only hurt them more.

He visits June and Sleeper in their cells. He offers to let Sleeper out of their partnership; in fact, he urges this. Sleeper tells him no. He doesn’t tell Edwin that the partnership he wants out of is his marriage. He’s decided that the only way to restore his honor is to divorce his pregnant wife. When finally released, he returns home to tell Asia so. She won’t do it.

He speaks to the press. The Booths, he says, are a nest of vipers. A family of Iagos, a house of secrets. He himself is not a Booth, thank the Lord, never has been, never will be.

Six months later, he and William Stuart mount a production of Our American Cousin at the Winter Garden in New York. Sleeper takes on the starring role. Edwin’s feelings about this are unknown.