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John Wilkes Booth (photo from Wikipedia)
Back in the summer of 2000, when I was reporter at the Washington Post, I spoke to Dr. Richard Mudd of Saginaw, who was 99 and still fighting to clear the name of his grandfather, Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, who treated John Wilkes Booth after he assassinated President Lincoln in 1865
Just months before I spoke to him, the U.S. Army had rejected his bid to overturn the conspiracy conviction of his grandfather.
"I will fight until I'm dead," he told me by phone from his Saginaw home. "I'm holding on day to day . . . in hopes they exonerate my grandfather."
He died in May 2002 at age 101. The family name remained mud.
Now, 13 years later, the campaign by the family to clear the name goes on. It's still mud.
On Friday, his son Tom Mudd, 74, of Saginaw, along with 75 relatives, were to visit a long-closed prison in a remote island off the southern tip of Florida where a brick cell holds a plaque honoring Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, a prisoner from 150 years ago, Francis X. Donnelly of the Detroit News writes
Tom Mudd hopes the reunion brings attention to the campaign to clear his great grandfather's name.
“He was railroaded,” said Tom Mudd, 74, a retired history teacher from Saginaw, according to the News report. “His family was ruined for life.”
The family still helps maintain the Mudd House Museum in Waldorf, in Southern Maryland, where the doctor lived and treated John Wilkes Booth after the assassination when he broke his leg after jumping from the presidential booth at Ford's Theater in Washington.
I took the tour of the museum once with some out-of-town-guests, and the Mudd family members gave their version of what happened and why Dr. Mudd was innocent. There are plenty historians who think he was guilty.
Here's what I wrote back in 2000 for the Post:
What's indisputable is that about 4 a.m. on April 15, 1865, several hours after Lincoln was shot in the head at Ford's Theatre, Booth and an accomplice, David Herold, showed up at Mudd's home in Charles County. Mudd set, splinted and bandaged the leg that Booth had broken when he jumped from the presidential box onto the Ford's stage. Booth was killed by federal troops 11 days later in Caroline County, Va.
Days after the shooting, Mudd was arrested and charged with conspiracy and harboring Booth and Herold during their escape. He was tried before a military tribunal along with several of Booth's fellow conspirators and convicted in June.
He was sentenced to life in prison and sent to Fort Jefferson, a military penitentiary in the Dry Tortugas near Key West, Fla. He was confined there nearly four years and saved the lives of prisoners and guards during an outbreak of yellow fever. President Andrew Johnson commuted his sentence in 1869.
Mudd returned to Charles County and resumed his medical practice. On Jan. 10, 1883, he died of pneumonia at age 49.
What's clear is that Dr. Mudd knew Booth.
Here's the story:
The Mudd family insists that he was simply fulfilling his Hippocratic oath by treating Booth. They acknowledge that Mudd was a Confederate sympathizer who had met Booth on at least two occasions, once at church. But when Booth showed up that infamous morning, he was wearing a fake beard and used a fictitious name, they insist.
Besides, they say, Mudd had no way of knowing Lincoln had just been shot.
Edward Steers Jr., author of the book "His Name is Still Mudd: The Case Against Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd," told me back then that he thought there was evidence of guilt.
I wrote:
Steers said strong evidence--evidence gleaned from court records, affidavits and newspaper articles--suggests that Mudd passed Confederate mail along to Richmond, met with Booth on several occasions and was deeply involved in a conspiracy to capture Lincoln and take him to Richmond.
He said he believes Mudd knew nothing of the assassination plot after the capture plan fell by the wayside. But he said evidence suggests that Mudd recognized the injured Booth and that "in all likelihood" Booth told him of the assassination.
