Those Booth Horses Again -

[Wild Bill]

For Mike Kauffman's relation of the broken leg see his website http://www.thedeathoflincoln.com/Booth-s...-Leg.html. The original story appears in his 1990 relation of the Assassination and the Pursuit, Blue & Gray, vol. 7, June 1990, p. 17, sidebar. Vol 6 is the Assassination issue, BTW. I think JOH Library at Clinton has them both.

I happen to agree with Kauffman 100% on this and have ever since I started researching Booth in 1999. I don't care how much adrenalin Booth had going through him, he could not have mounted that mare the way she was moving around using his allegedly broken left leg in the stirrup. And since the mare was not a cow pony, she would not cotton to being mounted from the right side. Besides all of Booth's weight would have been on the left leg as he sought the stirrup with his right.

But if you all want him to do it otherwise, go out and try to mount a bouncy horse with your two sound legs, and see what it is like. Don't get run over!

True, Booth said he broke his leg "when he jumped," but he does not really say where and when he jumped. Likewise, Dr. Samuel A. Mudd said that Booth and Herold told him that Booth broke his leg in a fall with his mare, in Mudd's statement to Col. Henry H. Wells. See Ed Steers, His Name Is Still Mudd, 107 (Booth had a black streak on his face, possibly mud?), 111 (fell with horse), 130 (same with LT Alex. Lovett of the arresting party).

Believe what you want. You pays your money, you takes your choice.