What Was The Role of David Herold

[wsanto]

John,

Thanks for the great debate.

My point is that Fletcher testified he saw Herold riding past the Willard from the direction of 15th Street (the Treasury Building) at 10:20-10:30PM.

Your thesis has Herold no further north than the corner of Pennsylvania and 12th (At Fords on 10th Street and then to the Kirkwood on 12th) to make his attempt on Johnson.

Knowing, obviously, that Herold was involved in some way, if Fletcher's testimony is to be believed then it is the evidence that Herold was riding away from the area of Laffayette Park (the Treasury) at this time. Other than escorting Powell to Sewards (for whatever reason), what would Herold have been doing so far north of 12th Street at this critical time?

As for Azterodt--I don't believe a word from him. Certainly he would want to point the finger away from himself as the proposed assassin of Johnson. He was hoping not to be hanged. Johnson was his only hope (as unlikely as that was). The logical person for Atzerodt to claim was the would-be assassin would have been Herold. That doesn't make it any more true than false in my opinion.

Concerning Lloyd's testimony--Booth may have told him only Lincoln and Seward were assassinated because that is all he knew to be true at the time (He knew he killed Lincoln and he knew Herold saw Powell go into Seward's and possibly heard the cries of murder before he left). In other words, Booth may not have known for a fact that Johnson was spared but simply didn't get any report one way or the other and, therefor, didn't mention it to Lloyd.

Bill