Your History Books may be Wrong

History records that John Wilkes Booth was killed on a farm in northern Virginia 12 days after he assassinated Abraham Lincoln. That's been the official account for over 150 years, but what if it's wrong?

There are folks in Guntown, Mississippi that tell a different story of the final fate of Wilkes Booth, and we learned about it a couple of years ago when we were down there detecting for civil war relics. In February, 2018 we met some residents of Guntown who were convinced that John Wilkes Booth survived the fire that supposedly killed him. Yes, he was in Virginia that day, they claimed. And yes, a body was recovered from the fire that was identified as John Wilkes Booth. But it wasn't really him. They insisted Wilkes Booth survived the fire, fled to Guntown, and lived out the remainder of his life hidden in the attic of his cousin, Doctor John Fletcher Booth.

We heard the story repeated several times while we were there, and toward the end of our trip we asked the land owner of one of our permissions if she knew anything about that story. Not only did she insist it was true, she also told us that when John Wilkes Booth did finally pass away as an old man, he was buried in a small, secluded cemetery way back on her property.

She gave us permission to visit the grave site and we had to cross through several cow pastures, but eventually we found the cemetery she described. And sure enough, among the other graves there was a broken tombstone marking the final resting place of John Wilkes Booth.

Is he really buried there? Beats me. But there are a lot of people from that neck of the woods who believe he is. One thing's for certain. We took a pretty cool side trip that few visitors to Mississippi ever get to experience. It definitely pays to talk to people and ask questions.