 Booth 's body was shrouded in a blanket and tied to the side of an old farm wagon for the trip back to Belle Plain . There , his corpse was taken aboard the ironclad USS Montauk and brought to the Washington Navy Yard for identification and an autopsy . The body was identified there as Booth 's by more than ten people who knew him . Among the identifying features used to make sure that the man that was killed was Booth was a tattoo on his left hand with his initials <unk> , and a distinct scar on the back of his neck . The third , fourth , and fifth vertebrae were removed during the autopsy to allow access to the bullet . These bones are still on display at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington , D.C. The body was then buried in a storage room at the Old Penitentiary , later moved to a warehouse at the Washington Arsenal on October 1 , 1867 . In 1869 , the remains were once again identified before being released to the Booth family , where they were buried in the family plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore , after a burial ceremony conducted by Fleming James , minister of Christ Episcopal Church , in the presence of more than 40 people . By then , wrote scholar Russell Conwell after visiting homes in the vanquished former Confederate states , hatred of Lincoln still smoldered and " Photographs of Wilkes Booth , with the last words of great martyrs printed upon its borders ... adorn their drawing rooms " . 
