His Name Is Mudd

[mikegriffith1]

It turns out Robert Lockwood Mills was still active on the Lincoln assassination in 2009. I found a review that Mills did on the Samuel Mudd case in 2009. He has some rather negative things to say about Steers' research on the matter. Here is part of Mills' article:

In 1992 the doctor’s grandson appealed to the Army Board for the Correction of Military Records to overturn his grandfather’s conviction. This board acted, essentially, as an appeals court for cases prosecuted under military law, and the Mudds scored an important victory when it decided in their ancestor’s favor. . . .

Under intense lobbying, the Secretary of the Army decided not to reverse Mudd’s conviction as the board recommended. Writer James O. Hall distributed a series of memoranda outlining the case against Dr. Mudd, and shortly afterward Edward Steers Jr. published an anti-Mudd book that repeated and even amplified the claims then being circulated. Enthusiastically endorsed by Hall and others, His Name is Still Mudd (1997) was treated as the new gold standard on Mudd books, in spite of its obvious drawbacks. It repeated the accusations made by the prosecution in 1865 but ignored the testimony offered in rebuttal. As the subtitle conceded, this was “The Case Against Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd.” It made no pretense of balance.

Encouraged by the favorable reception, Steers continued to write articles and speeches about the case. In a subsequent book, Lincoln Legends (2007), he devoted a full chapter to the man he had grown accustomed to calling “the deceptive doctor.” Though this book provided source notes, they often referred the reader back to Steers’s own earlier work, which was not annotated.

By and large, the public has found the Steers version of the Mudd case convincing. But like those of his counterparts on the other side, his appeal is more emotional than reasonable. He put far too much emphasis on the trial testimony. Normally, this would seem a safe bet to guarantee accuracy. But the Lincoln conspiracy trial was no ordinary proceeding, and the record it produced is extraordinarily unreliable. A survey of the War Department’s own records (such as those of the Army’s Continental Commands, which show the day-to-day movements of troops and detectives) would show that some of their own witnesses were swearing falsely on the stand. The Mudds have long maintained that this was the case, but as yet, no writer or historian has undertaken a detailed study to prove or disprove the point. If the aim is to determine whether Dr. Mudd was falsely accused, it seems to me that a close scrutiny of all the records is absolutely necessary.

Had he delved a little deeper, Hal Higdon might have noticed that a pivotal claim against Mudd--that he had falsely denied seeing Booth after their initial meeting in Maryland the year before--actually originated with a prosecution witness, and not with the doctor himself. Clearly, Mudd had seen Booth on at least two more occasions, and at the earliest opportunity he spoke freely about those incidents. But that would come later. By the prevailing laws of the day only government witnesses could testify on the matter, and it was this, more than anything else, that tipped the balance against Mudd in that sweltering courtroom. It is ironic that modern historians put their faith in the testimony produced and influenced by such an archaic rule. Mudd eventually issued a heated challenge to that testimony, but by that time he was in prison, and his words were not widely read.

With arguments raging on all sides, Robert K. Summers stepped quietly into the fray with the publication of The Fall and Redemption of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd (2007), followed by two book-length monographs: Dr. Samuel A. Mudd at Fort Jefferson (2008) and The Slaves of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd (2008). Summers, a great-grandson of Dr. Mudd, is less preoccupied with exonerating his famous ancestor than with building on the historical record. His archival research has turned up surprising new information on Mudd--not all of it flattering--and he shares it without hesitation. He is a firm believer in the doctor’s innocence, but he is also a scholar, and aims to make his points in a calm and professional manner.

Great stuff!