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$100,000 Reward!
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This printed broadside, issued five days after Lincoln’s
death, announced a $100,000 reward for the apprehension
of John Wilkes Booth and two of his known accomplices,
“John H. Surrat” and “David C. Harold,”
in connection with the assassination of President Lincoln
at Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865. In the days and weeks
that followed, the conspirators would become better known
(the names of John Surratt and David E. Herold would be
correctly spelled), and other conspirators would be identified;
Booth would be tracked into Caroline County, Virginia,
and mortally wounded in a tobacco barn set afire by federal
soldiers. Afterward, there would be a clamor for the reward
money, a portion of which would be divided among the officers
and the twenty-six soldiers who had captured Booth and
taken Herold into custody. John Surratt would save himself
by fleeing to Canada, while his mother, Mary Surratt,
would be found guilty, largely by association, and hung. |
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Unidentified artist
Albumen silver prints mounted on printed broadside,
1865
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
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