Throwing more Mudd in the game

[L Verge]

Mike used to say almost those exact same words on our Booth Tours.

I would like to go back to the situation at the Mudd home after reading Mrs. Mudd's interview that Roger posted from Bob Summer's wonderful site:

The children's nurse was either one smart, young lady and kept her mouth shut, or Mrs. Mudd was covering for her. It goes down in history that she and the children slept through the whole affair during the early-morning hours. If I had a nursemaid for my children who was that sound a sleeper, she would not have her job for very long. I would want someone with a mother's instinct to sleep with one ear open to hear any strange sounds from the children - especially an infant - and especially if I'm sleeping in a downstairs room and they are upstairs.

Nancy Tilly sleeps through two horses coming up the drive and being tethered. There is a very strong possibility that the Mudds owned dogs who would be raising cain -- but maybe they shut up once they recognized Booth and Herold as having been to the house before. I'm a monkey's aunt if Booth didn't utter curses or at least yelps of pain when dismounting.

Then there is knocking at the door that she sleeps through, three men talking downstairs, three men (two in boots) coming upstairs and past her door - one man having an obviously strange gait. If Booth didn't make a peep during the time his boot was being cut off and his bone set, he must have been biting the pillow very hard! Then she had to sleep through Dr. Mudd going downstairs. If she slept through all that, I want to know her secret (Wine of Valerian?)!

We won't get into the question as to whether or not Nancy Tilly saw either Booth or Herold during the day on Saturday...

Now let's move to Frank Washington, the tenant who came at daybreak to take care of the horses. That would have been about two hours after those horses arrived at the farm having been ridden hard for thirty miles and left to stand idle. I thought horses had to be walked and lathered down after such long, hard riding? However, they obviously survived their Mudd visit. Since Booth's original little mare did not like to be kept tethered, I wonder how she behaved for those several hours?

And, Washington is listed as the "hosteler" for the Mudds; but Thomas Davis is the one who testifies to the small injury near the chest on the mare. Did Washington work under the supervision of Davis, or was a white man handed the job by a free black man. That would have been highly unusual in Southern Maryland six months after the abolition of slavery.

I know that I'm surmising a lot of things and, as I said at the beginning, throwing some Mudd into the game; but that's what makes history fun - as long as you don't try to pass it off as truth until there are facts to prove your theories. I hope that's the way my postings on this matter are coming across. A good teaching technique is to play the devil's advocate and pry thoughts out of others.