His Name Was Mudd

[frontrank2]

https://www.facebook.com/fordstheatrenps/posts/4457354347677304

 

[jackt62]

Dr. Mudd gained early release from captivity and a pardon as a reward for his treatment of soldiers during a Yellow Fever epidemic at Fort Jefferson.

 

[lupaglupa]

That's a nice kit!

 

[Claude Bauer]

Posted today on Facebook - the Ford's Theatre National Historical Site

Among the Lincoln assassination conspirators, some questions still remain about the role of Dr. Samuel Mudd. At the start of the Civil War, Dr. Mudd lived in Charles County, Maryland where he operated a small tobacco plantation (@DrMuddHome) and served as a local doctor in the community. According to the 1860 census, he owned five enslaved people who worked on his plantation. Believing slavery was ordained by God, Dr Mudd expressed anger at Abraham Lincoln's election. Perhaps, this belief drove Dr. Mudd to join Booth's conspiracy in November of 1864. Dr. Mudd aided Booth by introducing him to John Surratt Jr. The remainder of his role in the conspiracy, though, mostly remains a mystery except for what happened on April 15, 1865. After murdering President Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth broke his leg during his escape and sought the help of Dr. Mudd. Upon reaching the Mudd farm, Dr. Mudd invited David Herold and Booth into his home and mended Booth's broken leg. Investigators believed Dr. Mudd used this surgical kit as he treated Booth. While Dr. Mudd said he didn't know Booth, the evidence contradicted his words. In June of 1865, the military tribunal convicted him. Dr. Mudd escaped execution by only one vote and was imprisoned at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas.
#FordsTheatreNPS #MuseumMonday
Image: Ford's Theatre National Historic Site Museum Collection, [FOTH 28]

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Thanks for the great post! There was a movie about him in 1980 with Dennis Weaver, which was pretty well done from what I remember. It won an Emmy and was nominated for 2 more: "The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd"

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081281/

 

[Kurt G]

Mudd's grandson , Dr. Richard Mudd , died at his home in Saginaw , Michigan in 2002 at the age of 101. He waged a long term campaign to prove his Grandfather's innocence , without success . As I recall his father never mentioned his famous ancestor and he first heard about him through an aunt . He would sometimes appear on local TV or in newspapers and was a bit of a curmudgeon.

 

[Mrs. V]

When I look at that kit I think. Not much has changed has it?? The angled bandage scissors..tweezers, scalpels,curved suture needle…it does look like the "cat gut" is a replacement though..

 

[bankerpapaw]

Mudd's grandson , Dr. Richard Mudd , died at his home in Saginaw , Michigan in 2002 at the age of 101. He waged a long term campaign to prove his Grandfather's innocence , without success . As I recall his father never mentioned his famous ancestor and he first heard about him through an aunt . He would sometimes appear on local TV or in newspapers and was a bit of a curmudgeon.

Do you remember the news commentator, Roger Mudd? He mentioned one night on the news that the name of his ancestor had been cleared.

 

[Kurt G]

Do you remember the news commentator, Roger Mudd? He mentioned one night on the news that the name of his ancestor had been cleared.

Yes , I certainly do remember him. I wish there were more like him today . He was not a direct descendant , but was from the same family tree.

 

[John Hartwell]

See the very informative The Case against Dr. Mudd, and An Interview with Dr Mudd, from the Lincoln Conspirators blog. In that blog, btw, you can find just about anything you might wish to know (and more) about the assassination conspirators.

PS: There is a Dr. Samuel A. Mudd Elementary School in Waldorf, Md.

 

[DBF]

I have to give a "shout out" to Dr. Mudd's wife, Sarah "Frank" Mudd. She worked tirelessly to seek her husband's freedom. On September 30, 1865 she wrote to Edwin Stanton with a request to send her husband articles of clothing and letter for his comfort. Stanton reminded Frank since Dr. Mudd was a guest of the government they would see to his "clothing and necessary subsistences" but she could send communications as long as they were unsealed and sent to the Adjutant-General of the Army at Washington.

When their daughter Nettie wrote her book "The Life of Samuel A. Mudd" in 1906 she wrote the following tribute to her mother

"Nor can one deny to his wife the highest measure of praise for her noble, womanly conduct during all the trying ordeals through which she was required to pass. Her trials will never be known save to herself and the God in whom she unfalteringly trusted. We are given some idea of the depth of her suffering, of the laceration of her woman's heart. . . no lower note of human anguish is sounded than that touched in the heart of this wife and mother, as shown in this appeal for justice to her husband and the father of her little children. Few can read this letter without emotion; none can read it without a measure of profound sympathy, and a yet larger measure of admiration, for the faithful woman who wrote it." {*}

{*} https://civilwartalk.com/threads/"frank"-mudd-she-never-gave-up-she-never-stopped-fighting-part-2.181695/#post-2358279

 

[John Hartwell]

"St.Catherine," home of Dr S.H. Mudd, is now a museum in Waldorf, Md.

[By Preservation Maryland - CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47621438]​

 

[bankerpapaw]

Yes , I certainly do remember him. I wish there were more like him today . He was not a direct descendant , but was from the same family tree.

Roger Mudd has class.

 

[shooter too]

Thanks for the great post! There was a movie about him in 1980 with Dennis Weaver, which was pretty well done from what I remember. It won an Emmy and was nominated for 2 more: "The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd"

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081281/
View attachment 419503

IIRC it was a remake of this one, directed by John Ford.