Dr. Mudd Lends a Hand

[Susan Higginbotham]

Mrs. Theodore Burnett was Elizabeth Shelby Gilbert Burnett. She and her husband, Judge Theodore Burnett, were from Kentucky. Judge Burnett was a member of the Confederate Congress. Here is another extract from her account (which was published a short time after her death), with some more details:


"A few days later Judge Burnett determined to send his family from Richmond and home to Kentucky if possible.
The arrangements were completed for my start home about the 29th of March by what was then known as the “underground railroad.” which meant traveling by any way you could. from the usual railway travel to an ox cart—any way to get to and across the Rappahannock and Potomac. There were nineteen in our party. most of them women and children. Major and Mrs. McLain, three children, and Miss Stevenson, Miss Botts, of Virginia, Mrs. Ashbridge. a dear old lady, widow of a Presbyterian minister, were of the number. After crossing the North Anna and South Anna (where Sheridan had burned the bridges) and the Rappahannock in little boats, we were delayed six days: but finally reached the Potomac. How to get across the broad river was the question, at this season, too. when the tide was troublesome. Meanwhile the surrender of Lee had taken place."

According to Mrs. Burnett, after the encounter with Dr. Mudd, her party was allowed to go to Washington:

"The next morning we started again on our way to Washington. We reached there about ten o’clock and were driven to some sort of headquarters. where we were kept waiting for two hours in our carriages, when permission was given to go to any hotel we pleased; but we were not to leave the city. Mrs. Ashbridge and I were soon in our rooms at Willard's. and were so glad to get there. That night they were celebrating the surrender of Lee. The city was illuminated, bands were playing, fireworks. etc. We closed our shutters tightly and tried not to see or hear—we were not celebrating.

"A young Englishman, who had been of our traveling party, went out to see and hear. and, getting quite near when Mr. Lincoln was called to the balcony for a speech, reported to us when he returned that Mr. Lincoln made a very conservative talk, and said: “The war is over now, these people are our brothers, and we must treat them as such,” etc. This did not please the waiting mob below. and there were many threats and much murmuring. The next morning an officer came and administered an oath, requiring that we should free our slaves. After that we were permitted to leave the city, and at eight o’clock that night, the memorable 14th of April, we left for Baltimore, where we stopped at Barnum’s Hotel, the home of Wilkes Booth, and at that time of course the most undesirable place for us. My baby was sick, and I called a servant late in the
night to bring some ice water, when he told me that President Lincoln had been shot. I never shall forget the horror of those words.

. . .

"I reached home without further incident the 24th of April, having been nearly a month coming from Richmond, Va., and was again with my children, from whom I had been separated for four long years. Where my husband was, I did not know. I had parted from him on the banks of the South Anna River."

Among Mrs. Burnett's acquaintances was Mary Lincoln's widowed half-sister, Emily Helm. Mrs. Burnett ran into Emily in March 1865 at Richmond; and she notes that Emily was staying at the Barnum Hotel in Baltimore on the night of the assassination. I have been able to verify that Emily was indeed in Richmond and in Baltimore at the times in question, the first through the diary of a soldier in Richmond who gave "Mrs. Hardin Helm" a letter to take to Kentucky in March 1865 and the second through a telegram sent from Emily at the Barnum Hotel to Robert Lincoln on April 15, 1865, asking if Mary wanted her to come to her. So the fact that these things can be verified makes me give Mrs. Burnett's account of the unrelated encounter with Dr. Mudd a certain amount of credence.