Miller details troopers' search for Lincoln's assassin

(I recently had an interview with Harp Turnbull that appeared in the Daily Bee in which he mentioned a woman who lived in Sagle he called, “Grandma Hornsby.” Two days later, I received an e-mail from Steven G. Miller, who lives in Lake Villa, Ill. He said, “I search Google News for articles on the murder (of Lincoln) and I did so today and came across the article by Bob Gunter with the story about Grandma Hornsby. I have some information on Hornsby who spent his last years in Sagle.” I contacted Steven and the first part of his story appeared in your Daily Bee on Saturday, Jan. 24.

Below, is the conclusion of this fascinating story of a man that ended his days in Sagle and is buried at the side of the person Harp referred to as Grandma Hornsby.)

John Wilkes Booth and David E. Herold had been taken to the home of a farmer, Richard H. Garrett, two and a half miles south of the ferry landing on the south bank of the Rappahannock. Jett knew the Garret family slightly and knew that farmer Garrett was a “good Samaritan.” Booth and Herold were introduced to the Garrett family as “John Boyd and his brother, David.” They were said to be Southern soldiers who were on their way back home.

The patrol led by Lt. Doherty rode past the Garrett farm on their way to Bowling Green in the late afternoon of April 25. By then, Cpl. Hornsby and the other troopers must have been bone weary after many hours of searching. They had been on the trail nearly non-stop from 10 p.m., April 24 until they arrived in Bowling Green around midnight on the 25.

 They tracked Willie Jett down at the hotel owned by his girlfriend’s family and put a pistol to his head. His options were simple: tell the soldiers where Booth was, or end up with a bullet in his head. He gave Booth’s identity up in a heartbeat.

The troopers headed back down the road, with Jett in tow. They arrived at Garrett’s Farm just after midnight on Wednesday, April 26. They quickly learned that Booth and Herold were in the farmer’s barn. A standoff ensued and Herold finally gave himself up. Booth remained defiant and the barn was set on fire to smoke him out. When Booth raised his carbine, as if to shoot someone outside the barn, Sgt. Boston Corbett fired his Colt revolver at Booth’s shoulder in order to disable him. The bullet from the snap shot went high and hit Booth through the neck. The assassin fell paralyzed from the neck down. He was dragged out of the barn and laid out on farmer Garrett’s porch. This happened around 3 a.m. He slowly bled to death internally and died just as the sun was rising at 7 a.m.

Booth’s’ body was taken back to Washington, autopsied, and buried in secret. The tired soldiers were given some time to recover and went about their duties.

The regiment was kept in Washington for the summer. The troopers with less than a year left on their enlistment were mustered out in late May. The others, including Cpl. Hornsby, were transferred to another unit called the Third New York Provisional Cavalry. They were mustered out in Washington on Sept. 21, 1865.

 There is no information on what Hornsby was up to after that. He received a share of the Booth reward money in the summer of 1866. The date is uncertain, and there is no record of how he received it. Most of the troopers worked with an agent who pursued the claim, received the draft from the Treasury, and charged a fee. Hornsby’s share was $1,684.85, a goodly amount.

Hornsby seems to have drifted West immediately. There is no solid record of him in the census record and his pension file says that he lived in various places: Denver, Colorado; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Sydney, Nebraska; and the infamous Deadwood, S.D. He was a freighter and teamster; perhaps he used the reward money to buy a team and wagon.

The Hornsby family tradition is that he was one of the teamsters who hauled the gear for the scientific expedition that surveyed the Black Hills in 1874. Colonel George A. Custer and the Seventh Cavalry provided the military escort. There is a famous photo of the long wagon train pulling into a valley in the Black Hills, an area that was sacred to the Sioux. Perhaps one of the tiny wagons seen in the painting is the one driven by Hornsby.

Hornsby married a widow, Jennie Vrooman, nee Pratt (born March 1838) and they had one daughter, Nettie, The couple seems to have acted as freight haulers for as long as possible. When they were no longer young enough to push a team, they settled down with Nettie and her husband in Westmond and Sagle, Idaho.

Michael Hornsby died on Feb. 18, 1914. He was buried in the Westmond Cemetery and a “government stone” gives his name and the unit with which he served. His wife joined him in death on Oct. 2, 1926, and is buried beside him.

(Mr. Miller is a native Oregonian, raised in La Grande in northeastern Oregon. He graduated from the University of Oregon in Eugene with a degree in U.S. history. His interests include the Indian wars of the Great Plains, the American Civil War, western outlaws and several “big events: the Battle of the Alamo, sinking of the Titanic, and the assassination of President Lincoln. His interest in the soldiers who caught and killed John Wilkes Booth began while he was at the University of Oregon. He has spent years researching the Lincoln assassination and the death of John Wilkes Booth. This quest led him to Michael Hornsby’s grandson who confirmed that Hornsby was a Georgia boy who had fought with the Union Cavalry and had been part of the funeral detachment for Lincoln’s funeral.)