Broken Fibula - Again!

[L Verge]

Jonathan,

Doesn't the name "Manteo" have a historical tie to the Lost Colony?

Getting back on track, Ed reminded me in a personal e-mail on another subject that Booth said to Cobb at the bridge that he was going to Beantown - which was the hometown of Mudd, not Bryantown. Atzerodt's confession states that supplies had been sent to Mudd several weeks before. Those supplies could easily have been sent by stagecoach since one stopped in Bryantown, and they were probably food staples that could have been easily hidden at the Mudd farm, or even in their kitchen.

And, concerning pushing the horses too far: Ed reminded me of a timeline that I had suggested on another forum showing how the fugitives were slowing down. Assuming Booth left the theater at roughly 10:30 pm, we know from Lloyd's testimony that they arrived at Surratt's right as the clock was striking midnight. That was a distance of about 15 miles that they covered in 1 1/2 hours. My great-grandparents were in T.B., five miles further south, and heard horses about 1 am while feeding the baby.

Mudd was about 8-10 miles from T.B. (using the old road system), but the fugitives didn't arrive there until about 4 am -- three hours from T.B. You can't blame the increased delay on the horse falling because, according to the purveyors of that theory, the horse fell between D.C. and Surrattsville.

To me, the delay can be attributed to the horses getting fatigued. Booth was an excellent horseman, and I suspect that he appreciated good horses. He was also traveling on city horses - not race horses and not ones that hauled heavy loads for miles and miles.

And, he knew he had a head start on the cavalry and that his first hideout was within the reasonable distance of thirty miles. To go beyond Mudd's to the Potomac at that rate would put him in daylight and roughly arriving at that destination about 9 am. The Southern Maryland river runners generally operated under the cover of night - not the bright morning sun.

I'm sure that the retort will be that none of the eyewitnesses at Ford's remembered Booth having a limp when he alighted after the jump. Herb's, Bill's, and Jonathan's sports descriptions above can certainly verify that any injury might not be immediately apparent. Also, if I had been in that audience, I would have been stunned and confused about why someone was landing on the stage anyhow; and then I would have heard the screams from the box and looked up instead of watching to see if the man rushing across the stage was limping.

As you can see, I am passionate on this subject (as well as other aspects of the assassination), but I have taken a large amount of heat on this particular issue because I still accept the legendary story of where Booth broke his leg and where he intended to go that first night.