Editing David Herold (section)

=== Assassination Plot and Escape ===
After their original plan to kidnap Lincoln failed, the new plan is to kill Lincoln. On April 14, 1865, after Booth arrived to pick up his mail at Ford's Theater, he learned that Lincoln will attend Our American Cousin and Ford's Theater and went to inform his henchmen about his only change in the plan.

At the Herdon House at 8:45 pm, they were in a last meeting to save the South. Herold and Lewis Powell were told by Booth to kill Secretary of State William Seward at his mansion, while Atzerodt would kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Booth himself would kill President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater. 

Just a little after 10 pm, Herold guided Powell to the mansion of William Seward, who was recovering from a broken jaw in a carriage accident and was wearing a metal canvas splint. 

Inside the mansion, Powell seriously wounded Seward, his two sons, a male nurse, and the State department clerk. The noise in the house caused Herold to escape, leaving Powell on his own to escape from the mansion. A half hour after Booth traveled through the Navy Yard Bridge, Herold crosses the bridge and met Booth at Soper’s Hill, just outside of Washington D.C. It was at this point that Booth was suffering a broken left leg. Nevertheless, they arrive at the tavern before midnight and within four hours, they arrive at the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who examines Booth's broken left leg.

The next day, Booth and Herold arrived at the home of Samuel Cox, who refused to shelter them and made them sleep in a thicket. He provided food, drinks, and newspapers to Herold and Booth, who was shocked to learn that he was not a hero as he was to be, as written in his diary. Within two weeks, the two fugitives went on a rowboat that would take them to Virginia and arrived at the farm of Richard Garrett on April 24, 1865. Two days later, they were discovered and trapped in a barn by Union soldiers. Herold surrendered, but Booth refused to surrender. Suddenly, the bullet fired by Boston Corbett severely damaged Booth's spinal cord, which led to his eventual death at 7:29 am, just three hours later after a gunfight.