Walking John Wilkes Booth's Escape Route: Mudd's to Swann's 2 of 3

[@robinrobyn1714]

I'm a huge History buff and this stuff is FASCINATING!!

[@ladylibertywdc8324]

Southern MD still has much of the same landscape as 1860's. Thanks for the better than guided tour. Drivers today will find the Mudd House w good road signs.

[@DJ-jn3on]

Really enjoyed that. I'm very interested in the other details not really known in Booth and Herald's attempted escape.I hope you'll do more. Well done.

[@kenp2218]

As someone who grew up on a farm, I can tell you there is one thing to keep in mind when thinking about their likely travel route back in 1865, or trying to re-trace it today: You actually mentioned it when you said that according to Dr. Mudd, he told them that they could take down the fence (or more likely a wooden gate in the fence) in order to travel cross country and cut a mile off of the trip to the next house. The thing is, back in 1865 pretty much every farm in the area would have had cattle and/or horses, so there would be many, many stone and/or rail fences designed to keep these animals in and to separate farm property's from each other. These fences would have made traveling across the farmed and pastured land with horses very difficult (especially in the dark) unless you knew where the gates to get through them were. Because of the need to pasture horses and cattle, and how difficult it was to work very much ground with horses, it was very common to have a fenced off central lane down the center of the farm, and for the fields to be fenced off in parcels of 8-10 acres or less; that means lots of fences to negotiate! As farming has evolved, there are less horses and cattle on pasture, more cash crop farming, and farm machinery has gotten much larger, most of these fences have been removed over time. Faced with these numerous obstacles, Booth and Herald would have mostly two choices: Skirt the fences and travel in the wooded/swampy area that isn't fenced, or travel on the roads. Since they were fugitives and did not want to travel on the road any more than was absolutely necessary, I believe they would have tried to travel by the more concealing wooded/swampy routes, but doing this also led to them getting lost/confused much more easily, which many accounts of their travel (including yours) describe.

[@robinrobyn1714]

Wow! I never knew that the area associated with Booth's escape is still in it's original state, more or less.

[@jacksparrow3402]

This is super cool!

[@juliewitt7496]

The late James O. Hall. You can't do any better than that.