Posts Tagged With: Mudd

The Mudd home in 1915

“Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, who, not knowing that the President had been shot, reduced the fracture of Booth’s ankle, which the murderer sustained in catching a spur in the flag which draped the President’s private box as he, Booth leaped from the murder box to the stage, was a physician known by everybody in the three rural counties below Washington City. He was a member of one of the most numerous families in that part of Maryland, and it is within reason to say that to-day thousands of his kin are living in the territory through which Booth and Herold fled. The name is a very common one in the southern counties of Maryland, and Sidney Mudd the elder, who long represented that district in Congress was a kinsman, and so of course is Sidney Mudd the younger, who was elected to Congress from that district last fall.
Dr. Mudd for his part in the tragedy was sentenced by military court to Dry Tortugas for life, but in 1869 was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson. Returning to his home, he practiced medicine till his death in 1882 [1883]. His widow died four years ago and the family house, in which Booth’s ankle was set, is dwelt in to-day by Dr. Mudd’s son and his wife and children.” - New York Tribune, April 4, 1915

Samuel Alexander Mudd, Jr. was the fourth child of Dr. Mudd and his wife, Sarah Frances Dyer Mudd. He was born on January 30th, 1864 and, in addition to the Mudd family home, he also inherited his father’s looks:

References:
“Following Trial To-day of Lincoln’s Assassin” - New York Tribune, April 4, 1915

While I take a sympathetic and pragmatic approach to Dr. Mudd when it comes to his knowledge of the assassination of Lincoln, from time to time I think it’s important to point out the fallacy of the “simple, country doctor” mystique that has crept up around him.  The following is an excerpt from Dr. Edward Steers, Jr.’s wonderful book, His Name is Still Mudd.  It succinctly states the evidence demonstrating Dr. Mudd’s involvement in John Wilkes Booth’s initial plot to abduct President Lincoln.  What follows after is an account written by George Alfred Townsend, GATH, in which the meeting between Dr. Mudd, Booth and Thomas Harbin is described.

“Mudd’s knowledge of, and acquaintance with John Wilkes Booth:

1.  The meeting in November 1864, in which Booth is first introduced to Mudd at St. Mary’s Church in Bryantown.

2.  The meeting at the Bryantown Tavern in mid-December 1864, (December 17-21) where Dr. Mudd introduced Booth to Thomas Harbin [see account of this meeting below], and when Booth spent the night at Mudd’s house and later purchased the one-eyed horse from his neighbor, George Gardiner

3.  The December 23, 1864 trip to Washington where Mudd meets Booth at the National Hotel and introduces him to Confederate agent John H. Surratt, Jr.

Whether Mudd knew that Booth murdered Lincoln, and when he knew it:

1. Samuel Mudd’s statement that he heard of the assassination while in Bryantown on Saturday afternoon (April 15^th)
2. Francis R. Farrell’s testimony in which he states that Mudd told both himself, and John F. Hardy on Saturday afternoon that a man named Booth had murdered Lincoln.
3. Samuel Cox, Jr.’s statement that Mudd told him, in 1877, that while in Bryantown on Saturday afternoon, April 15^th, Mudd had heard of the assassination of President Lincoln, and that John Wilkes Booth was the assassin.
4. Samuel Cox, Jr.’s statement that Mudd told him that when he learned Booth was the assassin he returned home and ordered Booth out of his house.
5. Captain George W. Dutton’s affidavit that Mudd told him on July 22, 1865, that he knew it was Booth whose leg he had set at his home on Saturday, April 15^th.

Evidence linking Mudd to Booth’s conspiracy to capture President Lincoln:

1. Mudd’s introduction of Thomas Harbin to Booth.
2. Mudd’s introduction of John H. Surratt, Jr. to Booth.
3. Samuel Cox, Jr.’s statement which quotes Mudd as saying that he went into Bryantown on Saturday, April 15^th, to mail contraband letters which he had received earlier.
4. George Atzerodt’s “lost confession” in which Atzerodt states that Booth had sent provisions to Dr. Mudd’s house to be used for their flight to Virginia.
5. Dr. Richard Stuart’s deposition which states that Herold had told him that Dr. Mudd had referred Booth and Herold to Dr. Stuart, implying that Booth would receive medical assistance.
6. William Bryant’s statement that the two fugitives were referred to Dr. Stuart for medical assistance.”

 - Dr. Edward Steers, Jr. in His Name is Still Mudd

Thomas Harbin

“After church that day Booth went into Bryantown, a mile or two distant, and in plain sight, and was introduced by Dr. Mudd at the village hotel to Mr. Thomas Harbin, the Marylander, who was the principal signal officer or spy with the lower Maryland counties.

Toward the close of the war rigorous policing of the lower Maryland country was relaxed or dispensed with, as the enemy had been pushed south of the James River and seldom molested the Potomac paris.  Harbin, whom I talked to at great length just before he died, about 1885, gave me particulars concerning Booth, which would now be past discovering.  He told me that in Bryantown, at the tavern, Dr. Mudd introduced him to Booth, and said that Mr. Booth wanted some private conversation with Harbin; they took a room on the second floor, where Booth went through the thespian motions of pacing and watching the hallways and escapements.  He then outlined a scheme of seizing Abraham Lincoln and delivering him up the same evening in Virginia.  He said that he had come down to that country to invite co-operation and partners, and intimated that there was not only glory, but profit in the undertaking.

Harbin was a cool man who had seen many liars and rogues go to and fro on that illegal border and he sat down Booth as a crazy fellow, but at the same time said that he would give his co-operation.”

– GATH dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, April 18^th, 1892

Our newest Picture Gallery on BoothieBarn.com is of the conspirator, Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd.  When John Wilkes Booth arrived at this 31 year-old physician’s home in Charles County, MD during the morning hours of April 15th, 1865, it was his fourth face-to-face meeting with the good doctor that we know of.  On a previous meeting between Mudd and Booth in Washington, Dr. Mudd introduced the young actor to another man who would feature prominently in the conspiracy to abduct Lincoln, John H. Surratt, Jr.  After the assassination, Booth sought Dr. Mudd specifically to help set his broken leg.  Mudd did so, and Booth and Herold spent the daylight hours of April 15th on the Mudd property.  Dr. Mudd claimed ignorance of the wounded man’s identity and stated to investigators that he did not hear about the assassination of Lincoln until he made a trip into Bryantown that day.  According to Mudd, upon his return from Bryantown the two men were already departing from his house.

Dr. Samuel Mudd

Though there has been considerable effort put forth, especially by his descendants, to portray Dr. Mudd as an innocent country doctor fulfilling his hippocratic oath, the truth is far more complicated and not as innocent.  Dr. Mudd’s involvement in Booth’s conspiracy is probably best stated by his own lawyer, Frederick Stone: “His prevarications were painful.  He had given his whole case away by not trusting even his counsel or neighbors or kinfolks.  It was a terrible thing to extricate him from the toils he had woven about himself.  He had denied knowing Booth when he knew him well.  He was undoubtedly accessory to the abduction plot, though he may have supposed it would never come to anything.  He denied knowing Booth when he came to his house when that was preposterous.  He had even been intimate with Booth.”

The Dr. Samuel Mudd photo gallery contains images relating to Dr. Mudd himself.  Additional galleries will come later to focus on specific places in Mudd’s life like the Mudd house and Fort Jefferson.  I hope you enjoy the new picture gallery about Dr. Mudd, and feel free to send any other pictures you might feel would be relevant to this gallery to boothiebarn (at) gmail (dot) com.

Special thanks to Robert Summers for sharing two pictures of Dr. and Mrs. Mudd for the gallery!

On this date, February 8th, in 1869, President Andrew Johnson presented Mrs. Mudd with a pardon for her imprisoned husband.

Mrs. Mudd, her friends, and neighbors had worked diligently trying to get Dr. Mudd released from Ft. Jefferson for years. According to Mrs. Mudd, during her several meetings with Johnson, “He conveyed to me always the idea that he wanted to release my husband, but said more than once ‘the pressure on me is too great.’” Now, with less than a month left in his presidency, Johnson called Mrs. Mudd to the White House and gave her a pardon for Dr. Mudd. A month later, on March 8th, Dr. Mudd was released from custody at Fort Jefferson.

Here is President Johnson’s pardon of Dr. Mudd in full, courtesy of Robert Summers’ impeccable Dr. Samuel A. Mudd Research Site:

“Andrew Johnson
President of the United States of America.

To all to Whom these Presents shall come. Greeting:

Whereas, on the twenty-ninth day of June in the year 1865, Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was by the judgment of a Military Commission, convened and holden at the City of Washington, in part convicted, and in part acquitted, of the specification wherein he was inculpated in the charge for the trial of which said Military Commission was so convened and held, and which specification in its principal allegation against him, was and is in the words and figures following, to wit:

And in further prosecution of said conspiracy, the said Samuel A. Mudd did, at Washington City and within the Military Department and military lines aforesaid, on or before the sixth day of March, A. D. 1865 and on divers other days and times between that day and the twentieth day of April A. D. 1865, advise, encourage, receive, entertain, harbor and conceal, aid and assist, the said John Wilkes Booth, David E. Herold, Lewis Payne, John H. Surratt, Michael O’Laughlen, George A. Atzerodt, Mary E. Surratt and Samuel Arnold and their confederates, with knowledge of the murderous and traitorous conspiracy aforesaid, and with intent to aid, abet, and assist them in the execution thereof, and in escaping from justice after the murder of the said Abraham Lincoln, in pursuance of said conspiracy in manner aforesaid:

And whereas, upon a consideration and examination of the record of said trial and conviction and of the evidence given at said trial, I am satisfied that the guilt found by the said judgment against the Samuel A. Mudd was of receiving, entertaining, harboring, and concealing John Wilkes Booth and David E. Herold, with the intent to aid, abet and assist them in escaping from justice after the assassination of the late President of the United States, and not of any other or greater participation or complicity in said abominable crime;

And whereas, it is represented to me by respectable and intelligent members of the medical profession, that the circumstances of the surgical aid to the escaping assassin and the imputed concealment of his flight are deserving of a lenient construction as within the obligations of professional duty, and thus inadequate evidence of a guilty sympathy with the crime or the criminal;

And whereas, in other respects the evidence, imputing such guilty sympathy or purpose of aid in defeat of justice, leaves room for uncertainty as to the true measure and nature of the complicity of the said Samuel A. Mudd in the attempted escape of said assassins;

And whereas, the sentence imposed by said Military Commission upon the said Samuel A. Mudd was that he be imprisoned at hard labor for life, and the confinement under such sentence was directed to be had in the military prison at Dry Tortugas, Florida, and the said prisoner has been hitherto, and now is, suffering the infliction of such sentence;

And whereas, upon occasion of the prevalence of the Yellow Fever at that military station, and the death by that pestilence of the medical officer of the Post, the said Samuel A. Mudd devoted himself to the care and cure of the sick, and interposed his courage and his skill to protect the garrison, otherwise without adequate medical aid, from peril and alarm, and thus, as the officers and men unite in testifying, saved many valuable lives and earned the admiration and the gratitude of all who observed or experienced his generous and faithful service to humanity;

And whereas, the surviving families and friends of the Surgeon and other officers who were the victims of the pestilence earnestly present their dying testimony to the conspicuous merit of Dr. Mudd’s conduct, and their own sense of obligation to him and Lieut. Zabriskie and two hundred and ninety nine noncommissioned officers and privates stationed at the Dry Tortugas have united in presenting to my attention the praiseworthy action of the prisoner and in petitioning for his pardon;

And whereas the Medical Society of Hartford County, Maryland, of which he was an associate, have petitioned for his pardon, and thirty nine members of the Senate and House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States have also requested his pardon;

Now, therefore be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States of America, in consideration of the premises, divers other good and sufficient reasons me thereunto moving, do hereby grant to the said Dr. Samuel A. Mudd a full and unconditional pardon.

In testimony thereof, I have hereunto signed my name and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Eighth day of February, A. D. (Seal) 1869, and the Independence of the United States the ninety third.

ANDREW JOHNSON, By the President”

Some recent advocates of Dr. Mudd have tried to use this pardon as proof that Dr. Mudd was wholly innocent of the crimes against him. However a pardon is not that same as being exonerated. Exoneration is when one is completely absolved from blame for a wrongdoing. A pardon is when one is forgiven for a wrongdoing. Dr. Mudd was offered and accepted a pardon. To accept a pardon is to accept the guilt of the wronging and to be forgiven for it.

In my eyes, Dr. Mudd earned his pardon due to his assistance during the Yellow Fever epidemic on the Fort.  He risked his life helping the soldiers and prisoners of the fort during their illnesses and subsequently paid for his involvement with John Wilkes Booth.

References:
Dr. Samuel A. Mudd Research Site

Thanks to Veterans’ Day, Lindsey and I have managed to take a long weekend trip away from our Southern Maryland home. We’re currently at a wonderful B&B in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. We’ve enjoyed the historic and ever constant 74 degree spring that George Washington and many other Virginia notables visited for its healing properties.

Even when on vacation though, I’m always on the lookout for anything assassination related. At a local antique mall I looked through every single CDV and cabinet card they had looking for a familiar face but to no avail. I did find and flip through the 1938 issue of Life magazine which contains pictures of the Booth mummy, but decided against purchasing it.

Instead I spent my hard earned money on a book that Lindsey already has a copy of and I have an electronic copy of, The Life of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd by Nettie Mudd:

The reason I decided to purchase this copy is due to the fact that this copy is signed by some of the grandchildren of Dr. Mudd:

Sadly, all of those who signed this book back in 1996 have all died, with the last granddaughter, Marie Mudd Summers, having passed away in January of this year. While not quite a collector’s item (I believe the Mudd House still sells autographed copies too) I feel the personal connection that comes with this book is worth purchasing an extra copy of it. Moreover, I was impressed to find a little piece of my local Maryland home 130 miles away.