John Wilkes Booth's Escape Route After exiting Ford's Theatre, John Wilkes Booth mounted a horse that was being held by Joseph "Peanuts" Buroughs, an innocent theater employee. Booth rode down the alley, turned left up another alley, turned onto "F" Street, and headed toward the Navy Yard Bridge. Although the bridge was guarded by Sergeant Cobb and his detail, no passes had been required for crossing since the first of April. Thus, as the guards …
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…more people. Several soldiers dragged Booth, still alive, from the burning structure. Booth had been shot in the neck. As he was laid on a wooden porch, he was found to be paralyzed from the neck down and whispered his final words, "tell my mother I did it for my country...useless, useless [while looking at his hands being held up to his face]."1 1.Edward Steers, Jr., The Escape and Capture of John Wilkes Booth, 1983.