Those Booth Horses Again -

[JMadonna]

(04-17-2014 05:34 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Jerry, why do you feel Booth necessarily dismounted (assuming Booth actually stopped at the boardinghouse as he escaped Washington)?

Do we know what Mrs. Surratt was doing at 10:30? Perhaps waiting outside in the dark ready to hand Booth's stuff to him as he rode by? No need to dismount if this scenario is true. Improbable, perhaps. Impossible? I don't know. My impression is that Mary Surratt was a Southern woman who despised Lincoln and would do Booth's bidding whenever requested.

Roger, under that scenario Mrs Surratt would have had to have known that Booth lost his hat at the theater and was ready to resupply him. Not just improbable but impossible. Booth would have had to either dismount or yell for Mrs Surratt from the street calling attention to himself. No testimony heard any such yell.

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(04-16-2014 10:31 PM)wsanto Wrote:  All this evidence of the horse fall has taken a life of its own and, in my opinion, has been misrepresented. It seems to me the primary sources don't really support the way some of this evidence is being argued.

Undoubtedly some of that is true. But whatever doubts you cast on the on the testimony the sheer weight of the evidence shows that Booth lied.

The diary was released 2 years after the event and witnesses were shocked by the claim since no one saw any evidence of it. Yet the claim took on a life of its own and soon the story was getting a re-write.