Mudd Descendants visit Fort Jefferson NP

[Dave Taylor]

(07-30-2015 09:22 AM)L Verge Wrote:  This sign/counter-sign/password debate is interesting. Dave Taylor has posted a great excerpt from a CW diary maintained by Julia Wilbur, an abolitionist sent to D.C. to assist the escaping (then freed) slaves. I'll have to re-read it, but I swear she talks about crossing from Alexandria into the city with ease because the security on the bridges has been relaxed. See BoothieBarn.com

Here's the passage you are referring to Laurie. It also stuck out to me when I was reading it.

April 15, 1865:

"...Mr. Belding has just come in and & says the secesh are being arrested. The military authorities have been very lenient with secesh lately. No passes have been required for a month or more."

I do not understand some authors' need to believe in a grand conspiracy of passwords or treachery in order for Booth to get across the bridge. The old adage states, when you hear hoof beats, think horses not zebras. The password scenario is a zebra, overly complicated for an inherently basic situation. As Ms. Wilbur helps to show, strict adherence to the rules where becoming more lenient around the D.C. area. Booth would have known and seen this and so he knew he would have no issue talking his way out of D.C. As long as he was ahead of the news of Lincoln's assassination, he would be fine. Should Cobb have passed Booth? If he was enforcing the laws with strict adherence, then no, technically not. But basic human leniency and understanding can't fault Cobb for allowing people to leave D.C. after hours, especially since the Civil War was very obviously winding down. By this point even the only conceivable threat to the city, an attack of some sort from the outside, was close to negligible. Yet we have to credit Cobb for enforcing that rule by telling Booth, Herold, and Fletcher that if they left Washington, they would not be able to return until morning.

I equate it all to this. Not too long ago, the FAA determined that cell phone usage on an airplane wasn't dangerous during take off or landing. I was on a flight shortly after that announcement was made. When I was on the plane, the flight attendant informed us that Southwest had not yet changed their rules regarding cell phone usage, but understandably told us all that if we did keep our phones on she "wouldn't tattle". All of us on the plane were grateful to the flight attendant for understanding and allowing us to keep our phones on.

Did the flight attendant break the rules by allowing us all to keep our phones on? Yes. If a terrorist had then used his phone to hijack the plane and crash us into something, would people blame the flight attendant? Of course. But that did not happen. Instead we had a completely normal flight. The bridge crossing is the exact same. There was no treachery and no passwords at the Navy Yard Bridge. It was a simple case of understandable and casual "negligence" on the part of intelligent men who knew the rules would be changing soon and started to show some leniency.