Where did Booth break his leg?

[Jatkins252]

Sorry if this has been discussed here before. I am new to the board. I have heard compelling arguments on both ends of where he broke his leg. I was leaning towards thinking it had to be a horse fall since that would be a very common break for that type of injury, but the more I think about it, I just do not see what he would gain by lying about that in his diary.

What is everyone else's thoughts on the subject. Also, it is great to be a new member of this board. I am looking forward to learning from all of you.

[Jim Garrett]

Josh, Great to see you posting. This is an arguement that goes round and round. In the book on the eyewitness account, none of the contemporary accounts mentions Booth breaking a leg, limping, etc. Most accounts that describe him walking across the stage describe him strutting or walking with purpose. The closest is an account saying Booth landed on the stage on all fours.

Booth shows up with dirt on him and he and Herold had switched horses. Booth's orginal horse, now being ridden by Herold, had dirt on the same side as Booth had dirt.

Some people think that the leap from the box may have caused a hairlins fracture that was possibly completed in a fall between the Navy Yard bridge and the Surratt Tavern.

Great to meet you and Heath this past Friday. Keep on posting.

[Rhatkinson]

While I have the utmost respect for Mike Kauffman, I believe that JWB broke his leg at Ford's for the following reasons:

1. There was no reason for JWB to lie to Thomas Jones about a detail such as how he broke his leg. Booth had been in the woods for days, and it gained him nothing to lie to Jones about that small detail.

2. Capt. Wood mentioned in his report (before JWB was killed) that Booth broke his leg at Ford's. According to to Kauffman, no one at that point had mentioned Booth breaking his leg at Ford's (Mike's theory is that all the "broke at Ford's" testimony was first mentioned years after the fact.) If that is true, what did Wood base his report on? My opinion (and it is just a guess) is that Swann or someone in his family mentioned to Wood that Booth said his leg was broken while jumping to the stage at Ford's. Swann told this to Wood, but after catching such flack for disputing Cox's claim that Booth and Herold never entered Cox's house, Swann was pressured to change his tune. (This is for good reason if you know of the history of how Cox dealt with blacks who questioned him.) Thus, Wood's frustration (as mentioned in his report) about the "evidence" he had being lost.

3. The fact that Booth told Dr. Mudd he had broken his leg in a horse fall is meritless in my view. After having told Lloyd about the assassination and seeing the negative reaction from him about it, Booth had no reason to tell Mudd the truth about the assassination. As such, he could not tell Dr. Mudd that he had broken his leg jumping to the stage at Ford's (as this would give Booth away.) Rather, he told Dr. Mudd a more believable story; i.e., that he had broken his leg in a horse fall. At that point, Booth could not take the chance that Dr. Mudd would refuse to aid his broken leg - he had to have medical help.

4. The ONLY evidence of a horse fall is the testimony that Booth told Dr. Mudd (see above) and that Herold MAY HAVE told Lloyd (this is disputed.) The "injury" to Booth's horse is the only possible other evidence of a horse fall, but this is questionable for the reasons above.

In short, we will never know for certain. However, all those in favor of the horse fall theory, please explain to me what POSSIBLE evidence that Wood had of the "Ford's break". I would love to hear it in light of Mike's theory that no one mentioned Booth falling/breaking his leg at Ford's until years after the fact.

Heath

[L Verge]

I like you more each time you post, Heath! It boils down, to me, to be yet another mystery that will keep us fascinated but will never have a fully documented answer. To me, Booth's diary is a primary source and is written in timeline fashion where the breaking of the leg at Ford's is in perfect sequence. However, I think we can only do educated speculation and arrive at a moot question.

[J. Beckert]

It is written in a timeline sequence, but isn't it thought he wrote most of it in the swamp, days later?

[L Verge]

Booth never stayed in the swamp. The diary appears to have been his pastime in the pine thicket.

[J. Beckert]

That's what I was thinking - the pine thicket. If he did write it there, after reading the papers, it seems to me he would have plenty of time to record the story for posterity the way he wanted it written. It's anyone's guess, but I do favor the horse roll theory.

[Craig Hipkins]

Did any of the witness' mention seeing Booth hobble out of the theatre? The only credible ones would be the statements taken right after the assassination. The later ones would have been influenced by news reports. I tend to believe that he fractured it jumping onto the stage...perhaps he aggravated it further from a fall from his horse.

Craig

[wsanto]

The thread "Breaking a Leg" is filled with great arguments from both sides. I learned a lot from participating in that spirited debate.

The horse fall theory breaks down for me because it is pure speculation.

We all know Booth jumped and landed awkwardly from a height of twelve feet. This is certainly a potential mechanism of injury that may result in a broken fibula. With adrenaline and alcohol coursing through his veins, it is not unreasonable to believe that he made his initial escape without much difficulty and didn't feel the full effects of the break until he was well past the Navy Yard Bridge.

Of course we don't know if his horse really fell on him. If it did happen, there were no witnesses. There is just the word of known liars and conspirators (Booth, Herold, and Mudd) who all needed a cover story for the broken leg.

Mudd's farmhand claimed the horse was "lame" with a shoulder injury but that horse was rode hard for many miles in a short period of time between the supposed fall and the Pine Thicket. How lame was it?

Mudd was on record for stating that the break was not a severe break. Even without the advantage of x-ray he was able to determine the break was not displaced. Now if one is making a hasty escape and his horse falls and the full weight of the running horse traps his leg between the body of the horse and the ground...just imagine the extent of the injury to the leg and imagine the likely other injuries the rider would suffer to his arms and shoulders and ribs and head...Booths only significant injury was a broken fibula. He did complain of a sore back as well but I feel he would have suffered much more severe injuries in a horse fall given this scenario.

Then we have Wood. An experience investigator that learns (or speculates) that Booth broke his leg in the leap to the stage (prior to learning of it in Booth's diary). Wood is present for the initial interviews with Mudd and learns Mudd's version that it was the horse fall. Somehow he discount's Mudd's story and concludes it was the leap. Why? No one knows.

Then Thomas Jones writes his account. Years later, in a throw-away summary of the events leading Booth to the Pine Thicket he confirms the accepted history that Booth broke his leg in the leap. He goes one step farther and explains how Booth claimed to Mudd that his leg was broken in a horse fall. Jones met with Booth for multiple days in the Pine Thicket. It seems reasonable to me that he would have learned the truth first-hand. He was closer to this thing than anyone that has ever commented or contemplated on Booth's escape.

Then we have Booth's diary confession. It is exaggerated to some extent but not really factually false.

[J. Beckert]

I think you summed that up well, Bill. Several medical experts, yourself included, have stated that Booth running off the stage with a broken fibula is entirely within the realm of possibility. It really is a moot point. With all the eyewitness accounts from early on saying he ran off the stage and the medical opinions that he could have done so with a fractured fibula, it's a dead end.

I really don't put as much weight on any later stories such as Jones'. It's too much after the fact. The jury is still out on Wood's story. With no evidence to explain why he came to that conclusion, it's very murky to me.

[Rhatkinson]

(04-22-2013 11:22 PM)J. Beckert Wrote:  The jury is still out on Wood's story. With no evidence to explain why he came to that conclusion, it's very murky to me.

To me, the larger point of Wood's report is not (necessarily, although I would like to know) what his source was, but rather THAT he had information of a leg break at Ford's. This really harms Mike's theory because it is based on there being no evidence or testimony of a Ford's break until after Booth's diary was found. Clearly, that is not true in light of Wood's report. What that evidence was is a mystery, but there was something Wood had well before Booth's diary was found or any of the witnesses at Ford's mentioned Booth appearing to have injured himself at Ford's.