(December 20, 1833 – January 10, 1883) was an American physician who was imprisoned for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the 1865 assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Mudd worked as a doctor and tobacco farmer in Southern Maryland.
He then studied medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, writing his thesis on dysentery. Upon graduation in 1856, Mudd returned to Charles County to practice medicine, marrying his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Frances (Frankie) Dyer Mudd one year later. As a wedding present, Mudd's father gave the couple of his best farmland and a new house named St.
While the house was under construction, the Mudds lived with Frankie's bachelor brother, Jeremiah Dyer, finally moving into their new home in 1859.
To supplement his income from his medical practice, Mudd became a small-scale tobacco grower, using five slaves according to the 1860 census.
Mudd believed that slavery was divinely ordained and wrote a letter to the theologian Orestes Brownson to that effect. With the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Southern Maryland's slave system and the economy that it supported rapidly began to collapse.
In 1863, the Union Army established Camp Stanton, just from the Mudd farm, to enlist black freedmen and runaway slaves.
In 1864, Maryland, which was exempt from Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, abolished slavery, making it difficult for growers like Mudd to operate their plantations.
The Civil War seriously damaged his business, especially when Maryland abolished slavery in 1864.
In 1864, Maryland, which was exempt from Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, abolished slavery, making it difficult for growers like Mudd to operate their plantations.
As Mudd pondered his alternatives, he was introduced to someone who said he might be interested in buying his property, 26-year-old actor John Wilkes Booth. ==Booth connection== Many historians agree that President Abraham Lincoln's future assassin, John Wilkes Booth, visited Bryantown, Maryland, in November and December 1864, claiming to look for real estate investments.
Some historians believe that Booth used his visit to Bryantown to recruit Mudd to his kidnapping plot, but others believe that Mudd would have had no interest in such a scheme. A short time later, on December 23, 1864, Mudd went to Washington, where he met Booth again.
In his sworn statement of April 22, he told about Booth's visit to Bryantown in November 1864 but then said, "I have never seen Booth since that time to my knowledge until last Saturday morning." Later testimony from Weichmann revealed that Mudd hid his meeting with Booth in Washington in December 1864.
(December 20, 1833 – January 10, 1883) was an American physician who was imprisoned for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the 1865 assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Mudd worked as a doctor and tobacco farmer in Southern Maryland.
However, his part in the plot, if any, remains unclear. Booth fatally shot Lincoln on April 14, 1865, but was injured during his escape from the scene.
Weichmann, had a conversation and drinks together, first at Booth's hotel and later at Mudd's. According to a statement made by associated conspirator George Atzerodt, discovered long after his death and recorded while he was in federal custody on May 1, 1865, Mudd knew in advance about Booth's plans; Atzerodt was sure the doctor knew, he said, because Booth had "sent (as he told me) liquors & provisions...
This supports the theory that Mudd may have been an accomplice to the plot to kidnap the president but not a conspirator to the assassination. After Booth shot Lincoln on the night of April 14, 1865, he broke his left fibula when he jumped from the presidential box while fleeing Ford's Theater.
Wilkes' written in it." == Trial == After Booth's death on April 26, 1865, Mudd was arrested and charged with conspiracy to murder Lincoln.
A military commission found Mudd guilty of aiding and conspiring in a murder, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment, escaping the death penalty by a single vote. Mudd was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson and released from prison in 1869.
(December 20, 1833 – January 10, 1883) was an American physician who was imprisoned for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the 1865 assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Mudd worked as a doctor and tobacco farmer in Southern Maryland.
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