The life, crime, and capture of John Wilkes Booth,: with a full sketch of the conspiracy of which he was the leader, and the pursuit, trial and execution of his accomplices./ By George Alfred Townsend.

6 The Life, Crime and Capture of JoAhn Wilk# oothA.
finging streaks of red and violet across the tumbled farm gear in the orner, plows, harrows, hoes, rakes, sugar mills, and making every separategrain in the high bin adjacent, gleam like a mote of precious gold. They
tinged the beams, the upright columns, the barricades, where clover and
timothy, piled high, held toward the hot incendiary their separate straws
for the funeral pile. They bathed the murderers retreat in beautiful illumination, and while in bold outline his figure stood revealed, they rose like
an impenetrable wall to guard from sight the hated enemy who lit them.
Behind the blaze, with his eye to a crack, Conger saw Wilkes Booth standing upright upon a crutch. IJe likens him at this instant to his brother
Edwin, whom he says he so much resembled that he half believed, for the
momeit. the whole purtsuit to have been a mistake. At the gleam of the
fire Wilkes dropped his crutch, and, carbine in' both hands, crept up to the
spot to espy the incendiary and shoot him dead. His eyes were lustrous
like fever, and swelled and rolled in terrible beauty, while his teeth were
fixed, and he wore the expression of one in the calmness before frenzy. In vain
he peered with vengeance in his. look; the blaze that made him visible concealed his enemy. A second he turned glaring at the fire, as if to.leap
upon it and extinguish it, but it had made such headway that this was a
filtile impulse and he dismissed it. As' calmly as upon the battle field a
veteran stands amidst the hail of ball arid shell, and plunging iron, Booth
turned at a man's stride, and pushed for the door, carbine in poise, and the
last resolve of death, which we name despair, set on his high, bloodless
forehead.
As so he dashed, intent to expire'not unaccompanied, a disobedient ser
geant at an eye-hole drew upon him the fatal bend. The barn was all
glorious with conflagration and in the beautiful ruin this outlawed man
strode like all that, we know of wicked valor, stern in the face of death. A
shock, a shout, a gathering up of his splenidid figure as if to overtip the
stature God gave him, and John Wilkes Booth fell headlong to the floor,
lying there in a heap, a little life remaining.
"Hfe has shot himself!" cried Baker, unaware of the source of the report,
and rushing in, he-grasped his arms to guard against any feint or strategy.
A moment convinced him that further struggle with the prone flesh was
useless. Booth did not move, nor breathe, nor gasp. Conger and two serggeants now entered, and taking up the body, they bore it in haste.from the
advancing flame, and laid it without upon the grass, all fresh with heavenly
dew.
"Water," cried Conger, " bring water."
When this was dashed.into his face, he revived a moment and stirred his
lips. Baker put his ear close down, and heard him say:
'"Tell mother-and die-for my country.
They lifted him again, the fire encroaching in hotness upon them and
placed him on the porch before the dwelling.
A mattrass was brought down, on which they placed him and propped
his head, and gave him water and brandy. The women of the household,
joined meantime by another son, who had been found iri one of the corn
cribs, watching as he said, to see that Booth and Harold did not steal the
horses, were nervous, but prompt to do the dying man all kindnesses,
although waived sternly back by the detectives. They dipped a rag in
brandy and water, and this being put between Booth's teeth he sucked it
greedily. When he was able to articulate again, he muttered to Mr. Baker
the same words, with an addenda. "Tell mother I died for my country.
.1 thought- I did for the best." Baker repeated this, saying at the same tiumt
k