Samuel A. Mudd Assassination

Samuel A. Mudd

"I don 't know who they are", I told them, but in my mind I knew perfectly well who the famous actor that had visited me the night before, had been. Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd was the first and only doctor to attend Booth 's broken leg. But attending someone who was hurt? What did Dr. Mudd 's helping hand, play in the assassination of President Lincoln?

On December 20th, 1833, Sarah Ann Reeves gave birth to Samuel Alexander Mudd, in Charles County, Maryland. Mudd 's father, Henry Lowe Mudd, was an owner of a very large plantation and in 1859 he owned his own farm, five miles north of Bryantown. Years before he did own his own farm, he entered St. John’s College in Frederick Maryland at the age of fourteen and attended the

Dr. Samuel Mudd welcomed Booth into his home the night of the assassination, April 15th 1865, but he was yet to find out he had just helped the Presidents assassin. Dr. Mudd treated Booth’s leg, he took the actors boot off carefully and diagnosed it later that morning to be a broken fibula. It was now 5:00 A.M. and Dr. Mudd decided to extend his hospitality and offered them to stay for the rest of the day in his house. He did not find out he was helping two assassins until later that day while in Bryantown. He had been buying supplies and greeting friends along the way, while stopping to talk he happened to hear that the President had been shot! And that it was by the famous actor, John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s theatre. It was now around 3:00 P.M. and only Samuel stood between Booth’s success or disastrous future. Dr. Mudd did not go back to his farm until three hours later, thinking about what to do with the actor’s staying at his farm. When he finally did get there he decided not to report the two assassins staying, but did order for them to leave. He agreed not to say anything, but Dr. Mudd was a confederate and so instead he gave Booth and Herold the names of two trustworthy and local confederate operatives, William Burtles and Captain Samuel