Breaking a leg

[JMadonna]

Ok, let me sum up our disagreements and call it a day – you can correct me where I misspeak:

1.The escape route:
A. South – Your proof that Booth planned to go South as his route of escape is based upon the kidnapping plot and that it was the route he took. To make this claim work as the route Booth always planned to use, one has to make the following assumption – Booth was totally unaware that conditions changed drastically since the kidnapping plot because the destination of that plot was Richmond. This is highly unlikely since it was pretty well known that Richmond fell and Davis was fleeing for his life. Therefore, if Richmond was not his destination, what was? Please fill in this blank, if possible.

B. North – I have no tangible proof that Booth planned to flee north but I do have precedence. The noted spy Stringfellow used the northern route to safety the week before and as you have mentioned the ‘New York Crowd’ would have probably used a similar route to New York and then to Canada. It was a proven commodity that provided a destination of refuge.

2. The Missions of Herold and Mary Surratt.
A. All we know for certain about the Herold mission was that he was in the TB area the day before, so your guess is as good as mine. You say he was there to spread the word, I say he was there to locate the horses.
B. Mary Surratt – All we have about her conversation with Lloyd is what Lloyd told authorities. I’m sure it is correct as far as it goes but there had to be more. Her job, IMO was to get everything in order for the escape. You simply don’t get a 19th century devout Catholic woman to skip services on the holiest day of the year to give only the ‘shooting irons’ message. The guns were already at the tavern, to get them ‘ready’ would have taken only a minute or two. The important logistic missing was the horses. If Herold related to Booth where they were located - then for Mrs. Surrat to tell Lloyd to have them ready would have justified her trip.
3. The location of the broken leg.
Fortunately, we both agree the leg was broken our disagreement is where. You insist on believing Booth’s account even though you know his diary is demonstrably false in a number of claims. There are no witnesses to back the claim, the physical evidence that the horse was injured in a fall and the impossibility of mounting a horse with a broken leg has had no affect upon your view. This is probably the reason you reject Richert’s theory that Booth picked up a hat, gun and holster at the Surratt house in Washington after the shooting. Fine and dandy, you are entitled to your view.

But my view is that the weight of evidence is much greater that the injury occurred after he crossed the bridge, and because of it history was changed.

The injury caused Booth to alter his escape plan and seek medical help from a man he hadn’t talked to in 4 months. Booth’s plan had to include changing horses for the simple reason that the ones he was riding were stolen and could be used to identify him. I believe he planned to change horses at the tavern and tell Lloyd to release the stolen horses further down the road towards TB. Then while the feds were following the bread crumbs he left he would be long gone in the opposite direction. The injury caused him to keep the stolen horses because changing them would have pointed to the direction he was now actually going.

We all know the poem about for want of a nail a horse was lost, then a message, a battle, a war and a country. The escape story is quite similar and shows how important events in history can change on the smallest detail.

Because a horse tripped in the middle of the night Booth was unable to escape North. And all those conspirators that Payne referred to in his claim ‘you haven’t got half of them’, were able to escape unscathed.

Good discussion.