Dave Taylor / Davey Herold Question

[L Verge]

For the life of me, I cannot picture Herold ever becoming an assassin! There is a lot of difference between shooting birds and rabbits and killing a person. There is also a lot of difference between letting someone like Booth think that you could commit murder and actually doing it. If Herold was so set on helping the Southern cause, he would have taken up arms against the Union in 1861 or so just like so many of his peers did.

I think his sole purpose from day one was to see that everyone did their job and then get Booth out of the city and to the underground in Southern Maryland. He was looking for adventure and never imagined that he would end up on the gallows. I taught dozens of teenagers who would have done something similar, but none of them had the killer instinct. Frankly, I'm not sure that Booth cared whether or not Johnson got killed. To me, his vendetta was against Lincoln solely, and if they managed to take out Seward, even better.