Breaking a leg

[wsanto]

It seems to me too coincidental that Woods surmised and then concluded without any evidence that Booth broke his leg at Ford's and then for Booth to make the identical claim in his diary. i guess it is possible.

The telegrams indicate that Woods considered both possibilities and seemed quite sure of his conclusion weighing (or ignoring) the facts as he knew them.

You are probably correct that the "lost" evidence, if any, could not be used to further discredit Mudd or it probably would have further incriminated him and sent him to the gallows. But, perhaps this evidence didn't pertain to Mudd directly and came from a source unrelated to Mudd.

As Laurie has mentioned, if there was lost evidence, it may have been lost due to its irrelevance to the trial. The cause of Booth's break was never a significant issue that required litigation.

On another matter, it is also, in my mind, equally likely that Booth and Herold would change horses due to the broken leg if the break occurred at Ford's or in a riding accident.

And finally, it is also possible that Booth and Jones never discussed the cause of the broken leg and that Jones simply included the accepted history in his book for the sake of completeness. But I really have a hard time believing that Booth's broken leg never came up in any conversation between them. It was the rate-limiting step in furthering Booth's escape. If it had happened in a horse fall, Booth would have likely relayed that to Jones and Jones would have included that in his book in stead of mentioning Booth jumping and breaking his leg at Ford's. Remember, he does mention the "cover" story of the horse fall when discussing Mudd and seems to dismiss it as such. Again this could be a recitation of accepted history but it seems unlikely as he was very close and very involved with this thing as it was taking place.