Everton Conger

Everton Judson Conger (April 25, 1834 – July 12, 1918) was an American Civil War officer who was instrumental in the capture of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, in a Virginia barn twelve days after Lincoln was shot.

Everton Conger was born in Huron County, Ohio, in 1834. He was the son of Rev. Enoch Conger, a Presbyterian minister. In 1856, he moved to Fremont, Ohio, where he established a dental practice.

Conger enlisted in the Union army during the Civil War, initially as a private in the three-months 8th Ohio Infantry. He returned to Fremont with the expiration of his term of enlistment and married Emma "Kate" Boren on October 16, 1861, with whom he had five children. He later became a captain in the 3rd West Virginia Cavalry and eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel of the 1st District of Columbia Cavalry. He suffered three severe wounds during combat and was assigned to detached duty in Washington, D.C., joining General Lafayette Baker's intelligence service as a detective.

Following the assassination of President Lincoln on April 14, 1865, Conger was ordered to accompany a detachment of 25 Union soldiers from the 16th New York Cavalry Regiment, led by Lieutenant Edward P. Doherty. The soldiers pursued Booth through Southern Maryland and across the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers to Richard Garrett's farm, just south of Port Royal, Caroline County, Virginia. Booth and his accomplice, David E. Herold, had been led to the farm by William Storke "Willie" Jett, formerly a private in the 9th Virginia Cavalry, whom they had met before crossing the Rappahannock.

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