Booth's broken fibula

[bob_summers]

I believe it was the tibia, not the fibula. In his 4-22-1865 statement to Colonel Wells, Dr. Mudd said “I found there was a straight fracture of the tibia about two inches above the ankle.” The tibia and fibula are both bones in the ankle structure.

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A little more info from George Alfred Townsend’s 4-16-1885 interview of Dr. George Mudd, Sam Mudd’s cousin:

“There are two bones in your leg, the tibia and the fibula; it is very seldom that the fibula is broken alone. The larger bone receives the shock or fracture, and while it often breaks the other bone with it, the smaller bone is generally broken by a very peculiar kind of twist. The strange kind of leap that Booth made from that box probably threw his weight toward his heel somehow, so that the rear bone broke. Now, that wound required no setting. You do not put the leg in splints for a fracture of the fibula. That bone is held in its place by very powerful muscles, and it would soon set of itself, with rest; but you see that man had been riding hard for three or four hours after his crime, and, of course, he felt uncomfortable, the ends of the bone perhaps prodding the tendons and muscles. All that Sam Mudd did with the leg, I suppose, was to wrap it around with something, and tell the man to rest it, and then he had him a crutch made by some one on the premises.”