The Legend Of John Wilkes Booth

[Susan Higginbotham]

Eyewitness testimony often varies, even when the witnesses are reporting what they saw in good faith (a good example being the disparate accounts as to what Booth said after shooting Lincoln). Perhaps Corbett genuinely believed he had struck Booth in the neck. I don't have any difficulty accepting his account as a whole, notwithstanding some inconsistencies.

What I do have difficulty understanding is why the man in the barn would allow himself to be shot in Booth's place. Why not surrender and give his real identity?

And if the man who died in the barn wasn't Booth, why didn't David Herold have this brought out at trial? It was certainly to his advantage to say that he wasn't with Booth.