36 Facts About Samuel Mudd

That year, he first met Booth, who was planning to kidnap Lincoln, and Samuel Mudd was seen in company with three of the conspirators.

Sometime that day, Samuel Mudd must have learned of the assassination but did not report Booth's visit to the authorities for another 24 hours.

Samuel Mudd was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson and released from prison in 1869.

Samuel Mudd grew up on Oak Hill, his father's tobacco plantation of several hundred acres, which was worked by 89 slaves and was located about 30 miles southeast of Washington, DC.

Samuel Mudd believed that slavery was divinely ordained and wrote a letter to the theologian Orestes Brownson to that effect.

In 1864, Maryland, which was exempt from Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, abolished slavery, making it difficult for growers like Samuel Mudd to operate their plantations.

One theory posits that Samuel Mudd was involved in a completely different conspiracy to gain an upper hand for the southern states.

Samuel Mudd arranged for a carpenter, John Best, to make a pair of crutches for Booth.

Samuel Mudd returned home that evening, and accounts differ as to whether Booth and Herold had already left, whether Mudd met them as they were leaving, and whether they left at Mudd's urging and with his assistance.

Samuel Mudd's delay in contacting the authorities drew suspicion and was a significant factor in tying him to the conspiracy.

In prison, Samuel Mudd admitted the Washington meeting and said he ran into Booth by chance during a Christmas shopping trip.

An acquaintance named Daniel Thomas testified that in early 1865 Samuel Mudd had predicted that Lincoln and his cabinet "would be killed in six or seven weeks".

Samuel Mudd escaped execution by one vote and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

In September 1865, two months after Samuel Mudd arrived, the control of Fort Jefferson was transferred from the 161st New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment to the 82nd US Colored Troops.

On September 25,1865, Mudd attempted to escape from Fort Jefferson by stowing away on the transport Thomas A Scott.

Samuel Mudd was quickly discovered and placed, along with Arnold, O'Laughlen, Spangler, and George St Leger Grenfell, in a large empty ground-level gunroom that soldiers referred to as "the dungeon".

However, because of his attempted escape, Samuel Mudd lost his privilege of working in the prison hospital and was assigned to work in the prison carpentry shop with Spangler.

The prison doctor died, and Samuel Mudd agreed to take over the position.

Samuel Mudd was able to help stem the spread of the disease.

Samuel Mudd was released from prison on March 8,1869, and returned to his home in Maryland on March 20,1869.

On March 2,1869, three weeks after he pardoned Samuel Mudd, Johnson pardoned Spangler and Arnold.

When Samuel Mudd returned home, well-wishing friends and strangers, as well as inquiring newspaper reporters, besieged him.

Samuel Mudd was very reluctant to talk to the press because he felt it had misquoted him in the past.

Samuel Mudd gave one interview to the New York Herald after his release but immediately regretted it, and complained that the article had several factual errors and misrepresented his work during the yellow fever epidemic.

Samuel Mudd resumed his medical practice and slowly brought the family farm back to productivity.

The next year, Samuel Mudd ran as a Democratic candidate for the Maryland House of Delegates, but was defeated by the popular Republican William Mitchell.

Samuel Mudd's ninth child, Mary Eleanor "Nettie" Samuel Mudd, was born in 1878.

Samuel Mudd lied to the authorities who came to his house after the assassination, claiming that he did not recognize the man who showed up on his doorstep in need of treatment, and giving them false information about where Booth and Herold went.

Samuel Mudd hid the monogrammed boot that he had cut off Booth's injured leg behind a panel in his attic, but the thorough search of Mudd's house soon revealed this further piece of evidence which was later used against him.

Samuel Mudd then turned to the Army Board for Correction of Military Records, which recommended that the conviction be overturned on the basis that Samuel Mudd should have been tried by a civilian court.

Samuel Mudd attempted several other legal venues, ending in 2003 when the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case because the deadline for filing had been missed.

Samuel Mudd's life was the subject of a 1936 film, The Prisoner of Shark Island, directed by John Ford and scripted by Nunnally Johnson.

All of these productions espoused the point of view that Samuel Mudd was essentially innocent of any conspiracy.

Samuel Mudd's life was the subject of an episode of the TV western Laramie, "Time of the Traitor" which aired in 1962.

Samuel Mudd's name is sometimes given as the origin of the phrase "your name is mud," as in, for example, the 2007 feature film National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

Samuel Mudd was portrayed by Matt Walsh in the 2024 Apple TV+ miniseries series Manhunt.