Richard Henry Garrett, born December 14, 1806, was the son of William Garrett and his second wife Clara Faver. He married Elizabeth Boulware on May 17, 1836. This union produced seven children: John, William, Mary, Cecelia, Catherine, Anne, and Julia. Elizabeth died in 1852. Richard remarried Fannie Holloway on November 27, 1853. This union produced five more children: Richard Baynham, Lillian, Robert, Henrietta, and Cora. Richard died on January 8, 1878.

Richard Henry Garrett owned farm land in Caroline County, Virginia. His property, called "Locust Hill" was near the main road between Port Royal and Bowling Green. On April 24th, 1865, Richard Garrett's farm was visited by three former Confederate soldiers making their way back from the recently ended war. The leader of the group, a Pvt. Willie Jett, asked Mr. Garrett if he wouldn't mind taking care of one of his compatriots, who was wounded, for a few days. Mr. Garrett, being a hospitable Southern gentleman with two boys only recently returned from Confederate service themselves, welcomed the man with a broken leg into his home with open arms. The man ate with the family that night seeming very pleased to have been welcomed in. The next day, the other solider who was with Pvt. Jett and the lame man returned to the house. He brought with him another soldier and another man, who was introduced as the lame man's cousin. Richard Garrett was out in the fields when this happened and his son, Jack Garrett informed this newcomer that he would have to wait and ask his father if he could stay on the farm with his cousin. The two other soldiers left the house and headed toward Port Royal. Not long after this the two Confederates raced back down the road exclaiming that the Union troops were crossing the Rappahannock river at Port Royal. The lame man and his cousin quickly gathered themselves up and went into the woods behind the tobacco barn. Shortly thereafter Union soldiers rode past the farm very fast. This impromptu hiding in the woods raised Jack Garrett's suspicions of the pair. The two men reemerged from the woods and then proceeded to have dinner with the family. After dinner, Richard Henry Garrett found himself a little bit under the weather, and left his son Jack to deal with the strangers. Mr. Garrett awoke early the next morning to the sound of someone banging on his door. Still wearing his sleep wear, Richard Henry Garrett made his way to the door and cracked it open. Union soldiers grabbed him and commanded him to tell them where the two men were. Having been ill and asleep, he did not rightly know where the men were. As he stammered trying to explain himself, the Union soldiers threatened to hang him in one of his own trees if he didn't tell them what they wanted to know. Just then, Richard son Jack appeared from one of the corn cribs on the property. He told the soldiers that the men they were looking for were sleeping inside the old tobacco barn. Jack led the soldiers to the barn and was commanded into the barn to get the men inside to give themselves up. The men inside the barn cursed Jack for betraying them and threatened to kill him if he came in again. With soldiers surrounding the barn, the uninjured cousin surrendered himself. He was taken to a tree and was tied to it. After discussion with the wounded man inside, the soldiers set fire to the barn in order to drive him out. With a rifle in hand the wounded man would not be taken alive and started making his way towards the door, ready to go out in a blaze of gunfire, taking out as many Yankees as he could. Before he could reach the door, one of the Union soldiers placed his pistol through a crack in the side of the barn and fired. The bullet went through the back of the man's neck paralyzing him. The soldiers rushed in and pulled him out of the burning barn. After a little while, they moved him onto the porch of Richard Garrett's house. The family brought out a mattress and placed the fatally wounded man on it. The man breathed his last breath just as the sun was rising. It was not until after he was shot that the soldiers informed Mr. Garrett who the man was. He was not a wounded Confederate soldier and the man with him was not his cousin. The man they had tied to a tree was named Davy Herold. The wounded man with whom the family spent almost two days with was John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln.