His Name Is Mudd

[L Verge]

Roger - I agree with you 100%, as do most modern historians who have taken the time to study Dr. Mudd's case and various background information about the good doctor's activities before and during the war. I have been and are friends with many of the Mudd descendants - including the late-Dr. Richard Mudd, who fought long and hard against documented evidence to attempt to clear his grandfather's name.

Several of Dr. Richard's children are members of the Surratt Society and attend our annual conferences, including his daughter, Mary Mudd McHale, a lovely lady whose husband, John McHale, is the one mentioned as having authored a book on Dr. Sam. Mary was a Catholic school librarian and realized that there were no children's books on her great-grandfather. She convinced her husband to write the book, which coincided with the height of the "Free Dr. Mudd" campaign.

As mentioned by our doubter, the Free Dr. Mudd campaign that led to the Army Board's action (or inaction) was based on the legality of a military commission trying civilians, NOT on the guilt or innocence of Mudd's actions as what is termed an "enemy belligerent." The previous pleas for help from Presidents Carter and Reagan were based on the same principle. We have copies of both presidential letters of response, and they basically offer sympathy to the Mudd family and agree that the military court might have been questionable - but that's all. Other U.S. Senators and Representatives were approached years ago (Biden and Hoyer to name just a few), and they made small steps in trying to help Dr. Richard Mudd, but nothing came of it. Hoyer had special interests because he is a Marylander who represents many descendants of the Mudd family on all branches of the tree.

If one were to read about Dr. Sam's activities on the slave patrols in his county before the war, his harboring Confederates moving secretly between the lines in Charles County, and especially the vehement letters that he wrote to church officials who were irritating him with changing positions on the slavery issue and the letters that he wrote from Fort Jefferson about being guarded by black regiments, the uninitiated might get a different view of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd.

I suggest that those who don't know the whole story should read His Name is ^Still^ Mudd by Dr. Edward Steers.

One last thought: I have spent over 70 of my years in Southern Maryland within 30+ miles of many of the Mudd folks, and they are wonderful, successful people -- but there is division within the ranks as to whether Dr. Mudd was guilty or innocent. I have heard both sides from many of the generations that followed.