Those Booth Horses Again -

[L Verge]

I just have to relate a personal story in retaliation to the comment about how easy it is to shake off dried mud. We are talking mud stuck to 19th-century wool - not polyester. Back in the 1970s, my husband and I did battle reenactments. While my husband was a corporal, I refused to be anything but an officer's wife; so I generally bounced around in full, hoop regalia.

However, it always seemed to rain at some point on the May weekends that we did The Battle of New Market, Virginia. This was always a very popular event because it was one where we were allowed to do our thing on the original battlefield - and we were honoring the memory of the VMI cadets who were called out to go into the battle. Having learned my lesson of the rain and the mud from so many vehicles and cannon wheels to boot, I decided to forego being an officer's lady one year.

I actually wore one of my grandmother's plain, brown, wool skirts ca. WWI and a white shirt and shawl. I stayed in camp and did what the distaff side does in portraying the female side of the war. Throughout the day, my skirts got wetter and heavier and muddier. The coup de gras came when we had to struggle through ankle deep mud to get to the field where cars were parked. Those who had given up and left early left the rest of us with nothing but a sea of mud. RVs became stuck, pick-ups kept revving their motors until they were axle deep, and eventually area farmers came with heavy tractors to assist. By the time we got home, my skirt was caked-on mud up to my knees. It had even seeped through to my petticoats.

Despite the skirt's age, I stripped it off and left it on the carport overnight. The next day, I tried everything I could think of to scrape, beat, brush, and curse the mud off that skirt. Yes, several layers of it came off (a stiff hairbrush worked best), but I finally gave up and decided to take it to the dry cleaners.

I walked into the cleaners, laid the skirt on the counter, and explained the situation. Do you know what I was told? "Go home and get the mud out. Then bring it back and we'll see what we can do."

I am assuming that Booth's coat and slacks and boots would have been in similar shape, if he had been thrown to the ground and rolled on by a horse. If so, Mrs. Mudd had a mess on her nice sofa, across her ingrain carpet (if they had such carpet), and down her upstairs hall to the front bedroom.

[wsanto]

(04-13-2014 12:11 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I am assuming that Booth's coat and slacks and boots would have been in similar shape, if he had been thrown to the ground and rolled on by a horse. If so, Mrs. Mudd had a mess on her nice sofa, across her ingrain carpet (if they had such carpet), and down her upstairs hall to the front bedroom.

Reviewing Dr Mudd's statements today I may have a possible explanation.

Dr. Mudd said he brought Booth into the house and laid him on the sofa until he got a light in order to take him upstairs. So it was dark at the time.

As far as the mud on Booth's clothes, Mudd only mentions this in one of his statements and characterizes it as being muddy from riding (not falling off a horse) as though Booth was splattered with mud from the ride (possibly behind Herold horse both riding at a gallop)

[Gene C]

Maybe they stopped at the Clinton Laundromat, conveniently located at 9123 Piscataway Rd, just around the corner from the Surratt House

or, more likely, the mud had dried by the time they got to the good doctor. If anyone would know how to get the dirt out it would be Mrs. Mudd

[L Verge]

Gene,

Did you read my recollections above about the difficulty in getting mud out of wool? Do you know what a laundromat would do to wool - then and now? I guess I know who washes the pants in your house. LOL

P.S. Mrs. Mudd couldn't even get her Mudd out of prison without the help of Union forces and a little thing known as yellow fever (with my apologies to Bob Summers).

[Gene C]

My only defense is I watched the documentary mentioned in an earlier thread, "Prisoner of Shark Island". She managed to get the Mudd out there. I guess they exaggerated a little?

[L Verge]

Just a tad...

[JMadonna]

I guess that leaves the spare pants in the magical saddlebags as the only option left.

[L Verge]

How tall was Dr. Mudd? Or had Davey Herold dropped off a spare set on April 13 while down in the country (assuming my ancestor told the truth)?

[wsanto]

(04-14-2014 01:27 PM)JMadonna Wrote:  I guess that leaves the spare pants in the magical saddlebags as the only option left.

As far as the mud on Booth's clothes, Mudd only mentions this in one of his statements and characterizes it as being muddy from riding (not falling off a horse) as though Booth was splattered with mud from the ride (possibly behind Herold horse both riding at a gallop)

[JMadonna]

Makes sense since we don't know what parts of Booth's ride were in the rain or what parts of the road were muddy. Heck we don't even know if he fell off his horse or not, although that's what he TOLD Mudd but not what he WROTE in his "diary". We all know the written word is more sacred than the spoken. Therefore he must have lied to Mudd and wrote the truth for future generations.

[L Verge]

Another argument that I use in thinking the break came at Ford's is the chronological order that he used in the diary. He has "in jumping..." immediately after the dastardly deed -- not ten miles down the road.

One of these days, it would be interesting to do a topographical tour of the escape route. On crossing into Maryland, the old road is still there, albeit hidden by the modern Route 5/Branch Avenue high speed raceway. I know exactly where to look for its remains, however. I also know where most of the marshes, streams, and ice ponds were/are that Booth would have ridden through. We go through them on the bus, but we never think to look out the bus windows and see what is on either side of the asphalt. Since the road was leveled off and paved in the early-1900s, we also don't realize the hills that Booth had to climb. Right now, I can think of three spots between Surrattsville and T.B. where, if I had been one of the horses, I would have turned around and headed back to the warm stables of D.C.!

---

I also realize that you are challenging us with a bit of sarcasm regarding the written word, Jerry, but please remember that our ancestors prided themselves in keeping journals of their daily activities, earthly phenomenons, and explanations for world happenings. Their written words were sacred to them for posterity. Booth's diary can't compare to the journals of Washington, Jefferson, et al, but for him, it was a chronicling of his beliefs and how he acted on those beliefs. Yes, I think he would have been more accurate in his writings than in his verbal dealings with others.

And, who's to say that Mudd told the truth? Self-preservation is paramount, so lie your way out of a bad situation at all costs.

[wsanto]

(04-15-2014 03:10 PM)JMadonna Wrote:  Makes sense since we don't know what parts of Booth's ride were in the rain or what parts of the road were muddy. Heck we don't even know if he fell off his horse or not, although that's what he TOLD Mudd but not what he WROTE in his "diary". We all know the written word is more sacred than the spoken. Therefore he must have lied to Mudd and wrote the truth for future generations.

Booth also told people his name was Boyd and he and Herold were returning from the war. And I bet he told them a lot of other lies. I guess he didn't want a lot of them to know he assassinated Lincoln or that he broke his leg when he leaped from Lincoln's private box to the stage.

I think Mudd lied. I know he lied about other things. If Booth told Mudd that he broke his leg at Ford's after assassinating Lincoln, I don't think Mudd would have passed that on to investigators when he was pretending he was innocent of aiding and abetting Booth's escape.

Booth certainly embellished his diary with a bit of flair but it was all basically a true confession. No reason in my mind that he would lie about where he broke his leg in that context.

[JMadonna]

"In jumping broke my leg. I passed all his pickets, rode sixty miles that night with the bone of my leg tearing the flesh at every jump."

Please note that in that one sentence alone there are at least 2 'embellishments'. The number of miles he rode and the tearing of the flesh at every jump.

Maybe it's the mathematician in me but if a statement can be proven to be 2/3 false how can normally reasonable people still believe the other 1/3 must therefore be true? Especially when you have to invent stories like the magical saddlebags to persuade others.

[wsanto]

(04-15-2014 08:38 PM)JMadonna Wrote:  "In jumping broke my leg. I passed all his pickets, rode sixty miles that night with the bone of my leg tearing the flesh at every jump."

Please note that in that one sentence alone there are at least 2 'embellishments'. The number of miles he rode and the tearing of the flesh at every jump.

Maybe it's the mathematician in me but if a statement can be proven to be 2/3 false how can normally reasonable people still believe the other 1/3 must therefore be true? Especially when you have to invent stories like the magical saddlebags to persuade others.

Jerry,

You may want to recalculate. Nothing in the statement is a direct lie or fabrication. It is embellished and the milage is incorrect (probably felt like 60 miles) and I am sure that after the first half hour of working the stirrups with his broken fibula he did feel a certain degree of pain so this may not even been exaggerated.

I think you are taking the statement too literally and not finding the truth that is at its core.

[L Verge]

Needless to say, I agree with wsanto on this. So far as I know, there was no such thing as an odometer on Booth's horse nor a precise way of measuring distances such as we do today; therefore, we are incorrect to positively state that Booth was exaggerating. From the D.C. line to Soper's Hill, I can guesstimate that the distance for Booth was about two miles longer than it is for us today with the relocation of what is now Route 5/Branch Avenue (then New Cut or T.B. Road) -- and that's just a small portion of the trek. Once again, don't try to judge 1865 history by 2014 standards!

For the first five or so years of the Booth tours, we had to use a school bus because we couldn't afford the coach liners. Trust me, every mile bouncing along on those school buses felt like sixty! And, I'm sure that school bus was a lot more comfortable than Maggie the Mare or her sidekick.

"Tearing at the flesh" does not have to refer to the outer flesh of the leg either. My arthritis makes walking feel like my inner flesh is being torn, so I can empathize with Mr. Booth's thoughts on pain.