Existing comment:
David Herold:
"Davey" Herold hailed from a well-off Washington family. A young pharmacist's assistant Herold once sold a bottle of castor oil to the Lincoln White House. His familiarity with and access to chemicals was valuable to Booth, especially if chloroform or some other disabling agent was required to overcome a president resisting abduction.
Beyond this, Herold brought to the conspiracy a hunter's familiarity with the Maryland countryside. It was Herold who accompanied Lewis Powell on his murderous visit to the Seward residence. Herold met up with Booth and accompanied him on his 12-day flight through Maryland and into Virginia, where they were both apprehended in a tobacco barn near Port Royal. Giving himself up to soldiers from the Sixteenth New York Cavalry did not spare Herold from the hangman's noose. |