What Was The Role of David Herold

[L Verge]

I don't remember ever seeing any author except Roscoe use that figure or statement. I have often wondered where he got it because it is not in the Herold statement in the War Department files. There has been a persistent rumor that Herold wrote a second confession during recesses in the trial, but that confession has never been found - if it truly existed.

Perhaps Herold was estimating the amount of Secret Line agents that were prepared to help in the escape during both plots. While I believe that people high in the Confederate command were involved at least in the kidnap plot, I certainly would not call them accomplices - more like planners to me. And, if we want to accept the belief that part of Mosby's Rangers under Garland Smith were assisting in St. Mary's County, that could add up.

In reference to the latter, I have always meant to find where William Burtles lived. We know that it was in the opposite direction of Col. Cox and closer to the St. Mary's County line. I have wondered - since that was the first place that Booth and Herold asked Oswell Swann to take them -- if the fugitives were considering an escape into Virginia via St. Mary's County and then into either the Patuxent or Wicomico Rivers and a lower crossing of the Potomac.