Breaking a leg

[Laurie Verge]

First of all, we have only the Atzerodt/Smoot claim that horses were to be made ready in T.B. for the kidnapping. It is my understanding that those horses were to be used for pulling the President's carriage at that time, since it required a lot more horsepower to pull a heavy vehicle for twenty miles than it did to carry a human. Since the assassination did not require the vehicle, it didn't require the relay of horses.

I guess you are also assuming that the New York Crowd is now the brains behind the assassination? Since Harney was receiving help from Mosby in his efforts to get to D.C. to mine the White House, do you assume that Mosby was working for the New York Crowd and not the Confederate bad guys? Also, why would you assume that the Crowd would need to escape south? They were in Union friendly territory and could stay put - or hightail it into Canada if necessary.

As for the Secret Line in Southern Maryland: 95% of the people in general in that area had had their homes and property searched periodically over the past four years. It wouldn't be me who took in two fugitive assassins in order for them to get a good night's sleep in a soft bed. Of course, Dr. Mudd did - and allowed them to stay for over twelve hours. I wonder how many other patients of the doctor got such special treatment. Cox and Jones were smarter. It's harder to find someone in a wide tract of forest land and also easier to move them if need be under cover of trees instead of wide open fields.

And speaking of moving, Jones wisely waited until he had a clear shot of getting the pair out into the river without a heavy concentration of troops in the area. This opportunity came when reports went out that two people had been seen crossing in the area of St. Mary's County. Off went the troops and out came Jones, Booth, and Herold headed for the river. Evidence suggests that the two crossing in the vicinity of St. Mary's may well have been two members of the Secret Line sent out as decoys. Night was the logical time to attempt to cross the Potomac, and Jones had done his duty and went home to his motherless children.

Briefly, my views on Baltimore are based exactly on the fact that it was a Southern city and had been throughout the war. Because of that, it had a high concentration of Federal troops and a high concentration of telegraph lines (remember that the first message ever sent via telegraph was sent from the Mount Clare Station in Baltimore to D.C.). It would have been logical for the Feds to assume that Booth was headed to his home territory or to Philadelphia (wasn't Asia there?) or New York City to investigate Edwin (was he there?).

I have to say for myself and (I suspect) others on this forum that I just don't know what else to say except that your opinion and my opinion are never going to mesh, and I think that it's time to call a halt to the "what ifs."