St. Peter's or Horsehead? Is the Stage Route the Answer?

[wpbinzel]

Since, in in my very first post, I offered a point or perspective that is new for Laurie, does that mean that I will be spared the "rookie" hazing initiation???

And, thank you, Eva for your kind comments and welcome.

THANK YOU, Laurie, for all you do. I am relatively new to this field (am a retired attorney), but virtually everything I have read that has been written in the past 20 years on Lincoln's assassination contains and acknowledge to Laurie Verge. You are a rock star!

And, thank you, Laurie, for saving me a trip down to Leonardtown (not that it isn't lovely this time of year...) to the Historical Society (an excellent suggestion, SSlater) to find the stage schedule in the local paper(s) of the time.

So, if my unproven speculation is right that Booth and Herold followed the stage route, then they would have gone past St. Peter"s. It's likely that they would have turned left from Mattawoman Beantiown Road on to Poplar Hill Road (It seems unlikely that they would have gone first to Beantown because, as Laurie pointed out, it would have required them to backtrack to Dr. Mudd's, at least if the current roads mirror those that existed in 1865).

(Personally, I would have preferred the route to Horsehead. It's a much more tranquil route and you get the feel of what the mid-1860s Maryland countryside was like. On 301/5, the only feeling you get is terror trying to avoid getting run over by the pickup trucks wizzing by at 85 mph, but I digress...) And, Laurie, you are correct: the Horsehead route is longer.

I am not sure the St. Peter's route can yet be declared the clear "winner," but I am inclined to give it greater credibility than I was when I first posted the hypothesis.