David Herold - Lincoln Conspirator

 

David Herold was just twenty-one and averse to performing any type of manual labor. He loved dogs, horses, guns and was never without something to boast about. Closer to the assassination, when he was drinking more, he hinted he would soon be rich and famous.

Herold attended Charlotte Hall Academy with John Surratt. When they met again in 1864, Surratt introduced him to John Wilkes Booth.

They recruited Herold because he knew the roads and paths in lower Maryland like the back of his hand and could easily guide the conspirators to safety.

Herold testified he was okay with the original plot to kidnap Lincoln. When the talk turned to murder, he backed out of it. He told Booth he would not disclose his “terrible secret.” He would keep his part of the bargain and help Booth escape through southern Maryland.

On the night of the assassination, Herold led Payne to Seward’s mansion. He waited outside to watch the horses while Payne went inside to perform his ghastly deed. When he heard a commotion coming from inside the house, Herold rode off and left Payne on his own to make his escape.

At the trial, Herold’s attorney, Frederick Stone, tried to show Herold had the mentality of an eleven-year-old.[i] That caused many reporters to describe him as simple-minded or half-witted, but that was far from the truth. David Herold had a good education. He studied pharmacy at Georgetown College. After graduation, he worked as a pharmacy assistant at several drug stores in the Washington area.

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[i] Pittman, Ben. President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators. 1865. P. 274. “Who is Herold, and what does the testimony disclose him to be? A weak, cowardly, foolish, miserable boy. On this point there is no conflict. Dr. McKim, who probably knew him best, and in whose employ he had been, declared his mind was that of a boy of elven years of age, although his age actually was about 22 – not naturally visicous, but weak, light, trifling, easily persuaded, good tempered, ready to laugh, and applaud, and ready to do the bidding of those around him. Such a boy was only wax in the hands of a man like Booth.”