Thomas Jones - Wash. Navy Yard

[L Verge]

Sydney Mudd actually married a daughter of Walter Griffin, a plantation owner who lived about two miles south of Surrattsville and one of those that David Herold mentioned as a friend/acquaintance. Historic inventories done in our county around 1970 listed the home as belonging to Mudd, so I guess that his marriage earned him ownership. Bob Summers of this forum can probably tell you more about Sydney Mudd.

Congressman Barnes Compton was one of the wealthiest men in Charles County, Maryland, before the Civil War. I believe I'm correct that he owned the largest amount of slaves, followed closely by Henry Lowe Mudd and his children. That information was given to me several years ago by a member of the Charles County Historical Society. Compton married a daughter of Col. John Sothoron of St. Mary's County who, in 1863, had to flee across the river after shooting a Union officer who came on his plantation, The Plains, to recruit his slaves into the army. The officer was getting ready to shoot Sothoron's son.

Mrs. Sothoron and her children were placed under house arrest without food sources until friends and family took them in. The plantation was seized under the Confiscation Act and became a government farm. Freed slaves from Virginia were brought there to grow crops and to live in the house. Compton sought help from President Lincoln, who reportedly sent a letter to Stanton; but nothing happened. It was not until the spring of 1866, that then-President Johnson returned the property to the Sothorons.

Col. Sothoron had fled to Canada after Lee's surrender and then returned and was indicted for manslaughter in November of 1867. It was a very short trial of his peers, and he was found not guilty. He then filed a claim against the U.S. government for nearly $100,000 in losses to his property, furnishings, etc. That claim dragged on until 1875, when it was finally rejected.

That story is one of those told in the current exhibit at Surratt House - Between the Lines: Southern Maryland in the Civil War.