What Was The Role of David Herold

[Laurie Verge]

That's a good way of putting it, except that Herold's expertise was the Southern Maryland portion of the route. There is no evidence that he ever had traveled into the Norther Neck of Virginia. Of course, the fugitives got a much better reception in Southern Maryland than they got in Virginia - maybe because of Herold being known by many of them. The Virginians on the other hand had experienced a much worse Civil War than the Marylanders had and were probably very leery of anyone showing up on their doorsteps that they had not met previously.