John H. Boyle

Captain John Henry Boyle was an officer of the Confederate Army who found himself in conflict with the law on several occasions, being arrested or captured at least five times and eventually being named as a suspect in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln at war's end.

During the 1860 election, Boyle had been accused of voter suppression alongside George Baden, William Berry and James Judson Jarboe. Jarboe was later named by Rev. William A. Evans as exiting the Surratt boardinghouse some months before at the same time Dr. Mudd was seen entering it - although Jarboe denied ever having been there.

On Jan 20 1863, Boyle had been captured in-uniform at his mother's house in Marlborough, Maryland, and spent five months in the Old Brick Capitol prison awaiting possible execution. On May 19, 1863, he was part of a prisoner exchange, and shortly found himself in the Battle of Gettysburg under Gnl George H. Steuart, who named Boyle in dispatches, "and Mr. John H. Boyle, volunteer aide--I am greatly indebted for valuable assistance rendered, and of whose gallant bearing I cannot too highly make mention".

Murder of Capt. Watkins

In 1864 US Gnl E. B. Tyler gave the order to Capt. Thomas Watkins that Boyle should be arrested as a horse thief, having previously been held twice before as a spy. Boyle retaliated upon learning he was wanted, by stealing a horse from the Davidson home where Watkins was staying but was pursued to the J.T. Hardesty shopfront in Collington, Maryland where he shot at Watkins but hit the horse instead.

Boyle was arrested and even Watkins acknowledged having used some unnecessarily extreme violence in restraining him, but some time later Boyle hit Watkins in the head with a scale-weight and escaped - working with underground Confederate forces in St Mary's County while repeatedly vowing he'd return to kill Watkins eventually. Watkins, meanwhile, had to resign his US Army commission due to the head injury.

On Nov 9 1864 Boyle sent death threats to Dr. George Mudd, the cousin of Dr. Samuel Mudd - and later sent death threats to Watkins. Boyle eventually returned to Watkin's home on March 25, 1865, with several cohorts, and sources differ on whether they knocked on the door and shot Watkins upon being greeted or snuck in a side door and shot him eating dinner or reading in front of the fireplace. Watkins' wife Julia and infant daughter Margaret were unharmed, as the attackers stole three more horses and departed just as another doctor arrived on-site and spotted them. The following day a local shop named Coffren's in Croom was robbed by three men in Confederate uniform, presumed at be Boyle and/or cohorts from Mosby's Raiders. Governor Augustus Bradford announced a $1000 reward for Boyle. On April 5, a robbery in Nottingham, Maryland was also attributed to him.

Attack on Seward and assassination of Lincoln

While it was Lewis Powell, of the Confederate Secret Service and Mosby's Rangers, who stabbed Seward, reports by War Department investigator Lt. David D. Dana initially named Boyle as the attacker. When investigators reached Dr. Samuel Mudd, who had treated John Wilkes Booth in the days after the assassination, Mudd claimed that "fears of the vengeance of that desperado [Boyle]" had been the reason he'd not gone to authorities to report the stranger in the night who'd demanded treatment - as Boyle had threatened a relative of his. Pearson, the husband of Boyle's sister, was also briefly named as a suspect by A. I. Fisher following a report by an unknown man identifying himself as the fictitious officer John Lyon. Boyle arrived in Bryantown the day after Lincoln's assassination, staying with Thomas Cage for a night before being scared into the forests by the arrival of apparent soldiers - then staying with Truman Canters in Benedict.

Boyle was promptly arrested in Frederick, Maryland after Lincoln's assassination, and remained in prison for seven years on the initial horse theft and assault on Watkins, as his uncles had procured Judge John T. Mason, Thomas S. Alexander and Oliver Miller as a defence team for him who successfully had his trial moved to Howard County and argued he could not be tried for the murder until after he completed the sentence for the initial crime. Lincoln conspirator George Atzerodt testified on May 1 that "[John H.] Boyle also killed Capt. Watkins near Annapolis last month, was one of the party, in the conspiracy", although there never seemed to be much evidence of Boyle's involvement.

Boyle was pardoned by Governor William Pinkney Whyte in 1872, for "his war-time activities", given that "Boyle is not expected to live a great while, and his friends intend to move him to Florida". Boyle actually ended up working as a detective for the Chicago, St. Louis and New Orleans Railroad until he was accused, and acquitted, of passing counterfeit money, and settled with his family in Tougaloo, Mississippi.

Death

Boyle was shot one evening sitting at home with his family, but authorities had little interest in seeking the killer. Allan Pinkerton refused to take the case, noting Boyle had been "one of the worst men he ever knew...good ridance". A local black man named Harry Barnes was briefly arrested, and the story circulated that he and Boyle had intended to rob a train together but upon Boyle withdrawing from the scheme decided to murder him, but the evidence was weak and the charges were dropped.