How John Wilkes Booth Died: Everything to Know About the Historic Capture
The gunshot did not kill Booth instantly. Soldiers dragged him out of the blazing barn through clouds of gray smoke and laid him across the grass. Realizing he was dying, they carried him to the covered front porch of the Garrett farmhouse and placed a mattress under his head.
The ball had punched through his fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae, severing his spinal cord and cutting off all motor control below his shoulders. Booth repeatedly gasped for air, unable to inflate his lungs fully without diaphragm control. A local doctor, Charles Urquhart, examined the wound and determined that survival was impossible.
Booth drifted in and out of consciousness as light broke over the Virginia pines. He repeatedly whispered requests for water and asked soldiers to turn him on his side to relieve the crushing chest pressure. At one point, he asked someone to lift his limp arms so he could see them. Looking at his motionless fingers, Booth muttered the final recorded words of his life: "Useless, useless." Shortly after 7:00 a.m., he gasped, shuddered, and died.
