Where did Booth break his leg?

[Rhatkinson]

While I have the utmost respect for Mike Kauffman, I believe that JWB broke his leg at Ford's for the following reasons:

1. There was no reason for JWB to lie to Thomas Jones about a detail such as how he broke his leg. Booth had been in the woods for days, and it gained him nothing to lie to Jones about that small detail.

2. Capt. Wood mentioned in his report (before JWB was killed) that Booth broke his leg at Ford's. According to to Kauffman, no one at that point had mentioned Booth breaking his leg at Ford's (Mike's theory is that all the "broke at Ford's" testimony was first mentioned years after the fact.) If that is true, what did Wood base his report on? My opinion (and it is just a guess) is that Swann or someone in his family mentioned to Wood that Booth said his leg was broken while jumping to the stage at Ford's. Swann told this to Wood, but after catching such flack for disputing Cox's claim that Booth and Herold never entered Cox's house, Swann was pressured to change his tune. (This is for good reason if you know of the history of how Cox dealt with blacks who questioned him.) Thus, Wood's frustration (as mentioned in his report) about the "evidence" he had being lost.

3. The fact that Booth told Dr. Mudd he had broken his leg in a horse fall is meritless in my view. After having told Lloyd about the assassination and seeing the negative reaction from him about it, Booth had no reason to tell Mudd the truth about the assassination. As such, he could not tell Dr. Mudd that he had broken his leg jumping to the stage at Ford's (as this would give Booth away.) Rather, he told Dr. Mudd a more believable story; i.e., that he had broken his leg in a horse fall. At that point, Booth could not take the chance that Dr. Mudd would refuse to aid his broken leg - he had to have medical help.

4. The ONLY evidence of a horse fall is the testimony that Booth told Dr. Mudd (see above) and that Herold MAY HAVE told Lloyd (this is disputed.) The "injury" to Booth's horse is the only possible other evidence of a horse fall, but this is questionable for the reasons above.

In short, we will never know for certain. However, all those in favor of the horse fall theory, please explain to me what POSSIBLE evidence that Wood had of the "Ford's break". I would love to hear it in light of Mike's theory that no one mentioned Booth falling/breaking his leg at Ford's until years after the fact.

Heath