Where did Booth break his leg?

[wsanto]

The thread "Breaking a Leg" is filled with great arguments from both sides. I learned a lot from participating in that spirited debate.

The horse fall theory breaks down for me because it is pure speculation.

We all know Booth jumped and landed awkwardly from a height of twelve feet. This is certainly a potential mechanism of injury that may result in a broken fibula. With adrenaline and alcohol coursing through his veins, it is not unreasonable to believe that he made his initial escape without much difficulty and didn't feel the full effects of the break until he was well past the Navy Yard Bridge.

Of course we don't know if his horse really fell on him. If it did happen, there were no witnesses. There is just the word of known liars and conspirators (Booth, Herold, and Mudd) who all needed a cover story for the broken leg.

Mudd's farmhand claimed the horse was "lame" with a shoulder injury but that horse was rode hard for many miles in a short period of time between the supposed fall and the Pine Thicket. How lame was it?

Mudd was on record for stating that the break was not a severe break. Even without the advantage of x-ray he was able to determine the break was not displaced. Now if one is making a hasty escape and his horse falls and the full weight of the running horse traps his leg between the body of the horse and the ground...just imagine the extent of the injury to the leg and imagine the likely other injuries the rider would suffer to his arms and shoulders and ribs and head...Booths only significant injury was a broken fibula. He did complain of a sore back as well but I feel he would have suffered much more severe injuries in a horse fall given this scenario.

Then we have Wood. An experience investigator that learns (or speculates) that Booth broke his leg in the leap to the stage (prior to learning of it in Booth's diary). Wood is present for the initial interviews with Mudd and learns Mudd's version that it was the horse fall. Somehow he discount's Mudd's story and concludes it was the leap. Why? No one knows.

Then Thomas Jones writes his account. Years later, in a throw-away summary of the events leading Booth to the Pine Thicket he confirms the accepted history that Booth broke his leg in the leap. He goes one step farther and explains how Booth claimed to Mudd that his leg was broken in a horse fall. Jones met with Booth for multiple days in the Pine Thicket. It seems reasonable to me that he would have learned the truth first-hand. He was closer to this thing than anyone that has ever commented or contemplated on Booth's escape.

Then we have Booth's diary confession. It is exaggerated to some extent but not really factually false.