By Richard A. Wolfe
Towards sunset on Wednesday, April 26, 1865, a detective rode into Washington, D.C, carrying the personal effects of the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. John Wilkes Booth, the charismatic stage actor, had been shot and killed in a Northern Virginia tobacco barn earlier that day—the violent culmination of a relentless manhunt.
The detective happened to be present when Booth suffered his mortal wound. He was Everton Judson Conger, who had fired up the straws of hay to smoke out Booth from his hiding place.
Everton, 29, had only recently signed on as a Special Agent of the War Department, joining a select cadre of investigators led by Lafayette Curry Baker. But Everton’s connection to Baker went further back in time to their days in the Union cavalry.
The brothers Conger go to war
A preacher’s son born in Huron County, Ohio, Everton Conger paused his dental practice and bade his family farewell in April 1861 to serve as a junior lieutenant in his home state’s 8th Infantry. After the expiration of his 3-month enlistment, he raised recruits for Company A of the 3rd West Virginia Cavalry. Conger received his captain bars and company command for his organizational role. One of his recruits, older brother Seymour, became his first lieutenant.
In December 1861, the brothers arrived in Wheeling, the unofficial capital of the Union-loyal counties of northwestern Virginia and mustered into the new regiment. Both men brought their own horses and equipment. They did not remain in camp at Wheeling for long, and soon departed for the Shenandoah Valley, where, with Company C, they scouted the enemy. The work inevitably led to a series of skirmishes with rebel troopers.
A significant change for the brothers occurred in the summer of 1862 when the companies received new orders to join the Army of the Potomac in the vicinity of Fairfax Court House in Northern Virginia.
Though the new assignment did not change the nature of their role as scouts, it did place them in an active sector of the war. By the fall, they had been dispatched to probe enemy positions along the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, a strategic line that connected the warring capitals.
Trouble at Catlett’s Station
On Oct. 24, 1862, the brothers and about 26 troopers patrolled the area between Catlett and Bristow Stations when they encountered a much larger contingent of Confederate cavalry—about 120 men. The seriously outnumbered Union horsemen held their own at first, but when another force of enemy troopers appeared on the scene it soon became clear that the West Virginians were in for a rough time.
Everton realized that the rebels numbered too many, and ordered his men to disengage. As he wheeled his mount a shot tore into his right side. The bullet lodged near his spine. He fell from his horse, and an alert rebel cavalryman slashed his face with a sword. Left for dead, Everton endured a cold night on the battlefield.
Over at the Union army headquarters of Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel, concerns arose when Conger’s command did not return. A member of Sigel’s staff, Capt. Ulric Dahlgren, the son of respected Rear Adm. John A. Dahlgren, set out with 100 men to find them. They encountered rebels near Catlett’s Station and chased them away, and then began interrogating locals for information about Everton The citizens pointed to the house of a doctor, where, they said, a Union captain was being treated. Dahlgren investigated and found Everton lying on a mattress, unable to be moved due to the severity of his wounds. Everton told Dahlgren the particulars of the fight, suggested he leave immediately because of the rebel force in the area, and asked him to send a surgeon.