Samuel Mudd

Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd (December 20, 1833 – January 10, 1883) was a Maryland doctor implicated and imprisoned for aiding John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

Early years

Born in Charles County, Maryland, he was the fourth of ten children of Henry Lowe Mudd and his wife, Sarah Ann Reeves. His father owned a large plantation called "Oak Hill," which was approximately 30 miles (48 kilometres) from downtown Washington, DC.

Mudd attended Georgetown College before studying medicine at Baltimore Medical College. After graduating in 1858, he returned to Charles County where he worked as a physician. On November 26, 1857, he married Sarah Frances Dyer (15 March 1835–29 December 1911), his childhood sweetheart. They bought a 218-acre farm near Bryantown, Maryland, and became the parents of nine children. He owned eleven slaves.

Booth Connection

Like many Southern Marylanders, Mudd was a slave-owner and advocate of slavery, and a supporter of the Confederacy during the Civil War. He was known to associate with people who were known Confederate agents and sympathizers. On November 13, 1864, John C. Thompson introduced Mudd to Booth at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Bryantown, Maryland. Later, on December 17, 1864, Booth spent the night at Mudd's house. The following day, they went to the Bryantown Tavern, where Mudd introduced Booth to Confederate operative Thomas Harbin. Harbin was to help Booth with his plans to capture President Lincoln, and transport him across the Potomac River into Virginia.

After Booth shot President Lincoln on April 14, 1865, he broke his left leg while fleeing Ford's Theater. Booth met up with David Herold and together they made for Virginia via Southern Maryland. They stopped at Mudd's house at around four o'clock in the morning on April 15. Mudd set, splinted and bandaged Booth's broken leg, and arranged for a carpenter, John Best, to make a pair of crutches for Booth. "I had no proper paste-board for making splints..so..I..took a piece of bandbox and split it in half, doubled it at right angles, and took some paste and pasted it into a splint". Booth and Herold would spend between twelve and fifteen hours at Mudd's house. They slept in the front bedroom on the second floor.

By noon, the news of the President's assassination had reached Bryantown, and of Booth's complicity in it as well. Dr. Mudd went to Bryantown during the day on April 15 to run errands; if he did not already know the news of the assassination from Booth, he certainly learned of it on this trip. He returned home that evening, and accounts differ as to whether he came home shortly after Booth and Herold had left, or he met them as they were leaving, or they left at his urging and with his assistance.

Whichever is true, he did not immediately contact the authorities. When questioned, he stated that he had not wanted to leave his family alone in the house lest the assassins return and find him absent and his family unprotected. He waited until Mass the following day, Easter Sunday, when he asked his second cousin, Dr. George Mudd — a resident of Bryantown — to notify the 13th New York Cavalry in Bryantown under the command of Lieutenant David Dana. This delay in contacting the authorities drew suspicion and was a significant factor in tying Mudd to the conspiracy.

Trial and imprisonment

After Booth's death, Mudd was arrested and charged with conspiracy to murder Abraham Lincoln. During his subsequent trial, Mudd repeatedly denied recognising Booth while treating him. One of his claims was that when Booth arrived at his farm, after the assassination, he was wearing "false whiskers and spectacles".

On May 1, 1865, President Andrew Johnson ordered the formation of a nine-man military commission to try the conspirators. The trial began on May 10, 1865. Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, David Herold, Samuel Mudd, Michael O'Laughlen, Edman Spangler and Samuel Arnold were all charged with conspiring to murder Lincoln.

On June 29, 1865, Mudd was found guilty with the others. The testimony of Louis J. Weichmann was crucial in procuring the convictions. Mudd escaped the death penalty by one vote and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Four of the defendants, Surratt, Powell, Atzerodt and Herold were hanged at the Old Penitentiary at the Washington Arsenal on July 7, 1865. Mudd, O'Laughlen, Arnold and Spangler were imprisoned at Fort Jefferson located in the Dry Tortugas about 70 miles west of Key West, Florida. The fort was used to house Union Army deserters and held about six hundred prisoners when Mudd and the others arrived. The four men would share a common cell away from the other prisoners. On 25 September 1865 Mudd attempted an escape by sneaking on board the steamer that brought soldiers to the island. He was quickly recognized. For his attempt, he and the other three prisoners were chained and held in their cells for twelve hours at a time and deprived the opportunity to exercise.

While serving his time at Fort Jefferson, Mudd was assigned to assist the fort's prison surgeon. During an outbreak of yellow fever in the fall of 1867 at the fort, the prison doctor died and Mudd agreed to take over the position. In this role he was able to help stem the spread of the disease. The soldiers in the fort wrote a petition to President Johnson in October of 1867 stating of Mudd's assistance, " He inspired the hopeless with courage and by his constant presence in the midst of danger and infection....doubtless owe their lives to the care and treatment they received at his hands."

Career after release

On 8 February 1869, Mudd, along with Spangler and Arnold, was pardoned by President Johnson. He was released from prison on 8 March 1869 and returned home to Maryland on 20 March 1869. O'Laughlen had died in prison.

In 1877 Mudd ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic candidate for the Maryland House of Delegates. Samuel Mudd died of pneumonia on 10 January 1883, and was buried at St. Mary's Catholic Church Cemetery in Bryantown, Maryland. He was forty-nine years old.

Edman Spangler left Baltimore in 1873 and moved onto five acres of land that Dr. Mudd gave him to farm until Spangler's death in 1875.
Samuel Arnold died of tuberculosis in 1906.

Trivia

Mudd's life was the subject of a 1936 John Ford-directed film The Prisoner of Shark Island, based on a script by Nunnally Johnson. Another film, entitled The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd, was made in 1980. It starred Dennis Weaver as Mudd, and espoused the point of view that Mudd was innocent of any conspiracy.

Mudd's grandson Dr. Richard Mudd tried unsuccessfully to clear his grandfather's name from the stigma of aiding John Wilkes Booth. In 1989, he published the book "Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd and His Descendants".

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