What Was The Role of David Herold

[wsanto]

(04-19-2013 07:58 AM)Gene C Wrote:  

(04-19-2013 01:02 AM)John Fazio Wrote:  There is an interesting note in Dark Union (a book I do not have a high regard for, but, as I keep saying, even a blind man can stumble over a nugget occasionally). Inter alia, the authors say (p. 263):

What occurred at the Navy Yard Bridge has never been positively established. One has to consider: F. E. Demond and F. L. Bates, June 16, 1916, Swaim Collection, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections...and Lieut. David Dana, Boston Sunday Globe, Dec. 12, 1897...(Further)..."the failure to question Cobb immediately after the crime is as perplexing as the failure to question (special policeman) Parker." (Stanley Kimmel, The Mad Booths of Maryland)

In addition to that quote is this one from Dark Union - chapter notes p 263-264
'If indeed the statement is genuinely Cobb's, (an unsigned and undated statement in the LAS files) it cast further doubt on officialdom's story, for, at least as reported in the Evening Star, May 17, 1865, Cobb said after seeing a picture of David Herold that "I do not think he was the man" who crossed the bridge a few minutes after Booth'

I don't believe it was sinister. It was dark. Cobb describes Herold's horse pretty well in court testimony. We know it was Herold.

The clincher for me is that Fletcher testifys that Cobb was going to let him across without a pass but wouldn't let him return.

It seems pretty evident that Cobb was letting anyone across into Maryland without a pass that night as long as they looked reasonble and had a satisfactory reason for crossing.

Also the fact that the court did not pursue any line of questioning concerning passes, curfew, etc. with Cobb is evident, in my opinion, that Cobb's actions were acceptable if not routine.