Booth's Escape Route

[MaddieM]

I too, do not believe that Powell, or for that matter Davey Herold were dim witted country boys. Booth recruited these individuals for a specific purpose. I doubt seriously that he would have trusted them with specific tasks if he believed that they dim witted.

Neither Davey nor Powell were "dimwitted." Davey attended Georgetown College (now Georgetown University) and although perhaps a bit immature, was not in any way dimwitted. Born in DC, he was most certainly NOT a country boy.

Likewise, Powell may have been a "country boy", but he was far from dimwitted. He had aristocratic family connections, being 2nd cousin to General John Brown Gordon. Young Mr. Powell was described as being held in "high esteem" by the boarders at the Branson boarding house in Baltimore. He was described as "gallant and chivalrous" by General William H. Payne, whose family boarded Lew while he served with Mosby's unit. Dr. Gillette said that he had "educational advantages and was of cultivated mind." So - dimwitted? I think not!

If either Davey or Lew were described thus, it was more or less due to the psychological effects of the horrid hooding experience that they were subjected to during their incarceration.

That Davey Herold was a year older than Lew and acted a bit more immature could be due to the fact that Lew had "grown up faster" while in the Confederate Army!

Perhaps Lewis was just naive, intellectually unsophisticated, unwordly, and made a stupid error of judgement. He probably thought he could kill one on one, but the reality of that is very different from firing random bullets on the battlefield. He stated that he had never knowingly killed anyone before. That indicates that he had not engaged in hand to hand battle during the war and killed someone in cold or hot blood.

The thing that most surprises me about Lewis, is that he seemingly did not have the capacity to see the larger picture. But then, none of them did. Undoubtedly, the whole assassination was a botched job, badly planned, and almost child like in it's plotting. What were they thinking? There was no real escape route, the horse Powell had was a nag with one eye, and a pacer to boot. He was someone who knew his horseflesh. What on earth made him go along with such poor planning? He worked raids with Mosby, which surely must have been tactical. This is what baffles me. Are we missing something? Is there a missing piece to the puzzle?

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I too, do not believe that Powell, or for that matter Davey Herold were dim witted country boys. Booth recruited these individuals for a specific purpose. I doubt seriously that he would have trusted them with specific tasks if he believed that they dim witted.

Craig

He trusted George Atzerodt and wasn't he very often worse for drink? Why would anyone choose a drunk for involvement in something that important? If that's not an error of judgement I don't know what is. I think JWB was desperate to do this, and when push came to shove, he probably would have chosen a performing monkey if he thought it would shoot Johnson.