4. Thousands of federal troops and agents flooded into Eastern Maryland
Within days of the murder of Abraham Lincoln, police officers and detectives from New York and Philadelphia joined in the search for the growing number of conspirators. Interrogation of the guards who had allowed both Booth and Herold to pass the night of April 14 indicated they were bound through Maryland. Federal troops, both infantry and cavalry, scoured the region through which Booth had planned to escape. Gradually, his immediate movements became known to the hunters, including the fact that Booth had been injured, having broken his leg. Newspapers reported the assassin had caught a spur on the decorative bunting surrounding Lincoln’s box at the theater, causing him to lose balance. The actor’s leg was broken when he leaped from the box to the stage. Others, including Booth himself, offered a different story.
According to Booth, he broke his leg when his horse fell as he rode in Maryland while waiting for the arrival of Herold and Lewis Powell. Booth told this version to Herold, Dr. Mudd, and to associates at Surratt’s tavern when the fugitives stopped there. Booth prided himself as an actor on his athleticism and was well-known for staging daring leaps and falls in performing his various roles. Also, photographs taken following the assassination show the bunting still in place around the President’s box, undamaged. It also seems unlikely a man with the well-developed ego displayed throughout his life would claim to have fallen from a horse had such an event not occurred. Either way, by late in the day of April 15, the hunters knew they were searching for two men, traveling together, one of them with a broken leg. Hiding in Maryland thus proved a daunting proposition.