5. Booth was aided by Southern sympathizers, despite the presence of Union troops
When Booth and Herold left Dr. Mudd’s farm, they took with them a name and location of a Confederate sympathizer, Colonel Samuel Cox. Warned by Mudd to avoid Bryantown, the pair took a circuitous route, ending up thoroughly lost. They encountered a local, who agreed to escort them to the Cox home for a fee. Cox agreed to help them, but grew suspicious of the man who guided them to his home, Oswell Swann, whose loyalties were questionable. Cox led the fugitives to a pine thicket in a nearby swamp, where they were told to remain until he had arranged safe passage across the Potomac to Virginia.
The fugitives remained in the swamp from April 16 until April 21. They were there when the government, through the War Department, announced the $100,000 reward for the capture of John Wilkes Booth. Meanwhile, most of the conspirators in Booth’s earlier plot to kidnap the President were rounded up, as were several suspects who were later released, not guilty of anything having to do with the plots. Booth was provided with newspapers delivered by Cox’s trusted servants and spent his time in the swamp reading the reports of his actions and bemoaning his fate in his diary. The Navy positioned gunboats at strategic positions on the Potomac, and the military dragnet tightened on the two conspirators.