Mathias Point

Mathias Point. Booth and Herold Flee to Virginia. , John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, and his accomplice David E. Herold, fled Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865, for Southern Maryland, a hotbed of Confederate sympathizers skilled at evading Union surveillance. On April 20, Confederate signal agent Thomas A Jones led them to Pope's creek in Charles County, Maryland, about two and one-half miles upstream from here, where he had hidden a rowboat. There, the river's currents were strong. Jones showed them a course to Machodoc Creek in Virginia, about three miles southwest of here, and Mrs. Elizabeth R. Queensberry's house, but the wing and current pushed them due west toward Mathias Point instead. Disoriented, they rowed back to Maryland. On the night of April 22, the pair tried again, crossing the river to the eastern side of Mathias Point, then rowing south along the Virginia shore to Gambo Creek. Mrs. Queensberry gave them a meal and her neighbor Thomas Harbin escorted them farther on their attempted escape. Booth's death and Herold's surrender on April 26 at Richard H. Garnett's farm in Caroline County ended their flight., The Mathis Point peninsula was thick with Confederate sympathizers. On August 15, 1861, Acting Master William Budd took gunboat USS Resolute, a steam-powered converted tugboat, to Mathias Point and then to Persimmon Point, a mile north of here. There, he spotted a grounded schooner and sent a small crew to take her off. Confederates fired from bushes on shore, killing three and wounding one. Budd drove them off and recovered the schooner., (sidebar) , First Naval Casualty , In May 1861, Confederate forces began constructing a battery northwest of here at Mathias Point to stop Federal vessels on the Potomac River from transporting supplies and troops to Washington, D.C. On June 27, Union Commander James H. Ward, USS Thomas Freeborn, attacked the battery, which returned fire and killed Ward, the only Union casualty and the first U.S. naval officer killed in the war., (captions) , John Wilkes Booth Courtesy Library of Congress , David E. Herold Courtesy Library of Congress , USS Resolute, Harper's Weekly, July 20, 1861 , USS Thomas Freeborn, 1861, with sailors reenacting the death of Ward while sighting his gun , Naval History and Heritage Command