Booth escape route north

[L Verge]

Since Archbishop Spaulding represented much of the Maryland, slave-owning population, I will not contest the fact that Lincoln may not have been his bosom buddy. However, if you are trusting the word of a gentleman in the hierarchy of Freemasonry that the Archbishop administered the sacraments to Booth, you are taking the word of a representative of a group that opposed the Catholic Church and its doctrine well into the 20th century. I can speak from personal experience to that: I had an aunt and uncle that were very high up in the Rites of Freemasonry and the Eastern Star. They almost disowned me when I dared to marry a divorced Catholic - even though he converted to my Episcopal faith before our marriage. There is always the possibility that Mr. Sherman was heaping blame on the Church for the assassination the same as a number of disgruntled Catholics have done over the years.

In order to prove your claim, it would do you well to find written proof in the archives of the Maryland Archdiocese that Booth was converted to Catholicism and given the sacraments. The conversion should certainly be noted in official church records. That would be the primary source to rely on. I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church when I was twelve, and I can go to the written records in both my church and the diocese to prove it.

As for the issue of the broken leg, I stick to the one PRIMARY source - Booth himself. I then take into consideration the tear in the flag and the chip in the frame of Washington's engraving as secondary. More importantly before the flag and frame, however, I trust the opinion of at least a half-dozen modern physicians who have told me that a man with that type of injury to his leg would be perfectly capable of mounting a horse and riding for miles before the adrenaline rush would wear off.

In closing, I just want to confirm something that you said in the first posting: You claim that Booth had a boat waiting at Benedict, Maryland, in which to make his escape. I'm sure that you are aware that Benedict was (and still is) a tiny little fishing area at the foot of what had been several large plantations (one of which had belonged to an ancestor of mine). It was also the spot chosen by the U.S. Army to place a training camp for U.S. Colored Troops (Camp Stanton) during the war. It was/is also located on the Patuxent River - not the Potomac, and it would take longer to sail out to the Potomac and then across to Virginia. Black and white troops from Camp Stanton had spent a good deal of the war raiding plantations along the Patuxent and out into St. Mary's County for slaves to swell the ranks of the U.S.C.T. I'm sure you are aware of the famous incident with Col. John Sothoron of The Plains. JWB might have found the citizenry around Benedict a little reluctant to deal with him and the ensuing Yankees.