The Mudd family, David Herold and the Sothorons.

[Stephen]

My research concerns Col. John Henry Sothoron. Sothoron was St. Mary’s plantation owner and a former member of the Maryland legislature. Both of Sothoron’s sons joined the Confederate army. Sothoron communicated to Judah Benjamin through General Samuel Cooper about his son Webster for a commission. Webster Sothoron was in the Signal Corps. There is inconclusive evidence that Webster was a spy. Confederate Signal Corps Major William Norris wrote a recommendation for Webster to Secretary of War Seddon.

In October of 1862, Sothoron wrote a letter to Jefferson Davis recommending a Union army officer who was defecting to the Confederates. Sothoron was a member of the Confederate underground in Maryland.

In October of 1863, Sothoron shot and killed a Union army lieutenant who came to recruit his slaves. He fled to Richmond. Records prove he communicated with and met Jefferson Davis. Sothoron knew a few prominent Virginians from the time he went to the University of Virginia.

On April 15, 1865, there was a skirmish near the Union occupied farm of Sothoron between a unit of Mosby’s Rangers and the Union army. It was unusual for Mosby’s men to be in that part of Maryland. It may, or may not be that they had something to do with Booth’s escape and/or the plan to kidnap Lincoln.

After the war ended, Sothoron fled to Canada. He returned and was found innocent of murder by a St. Mary’s county court. Sothoron was represented by attorney Stone, who also defended Dr. Mudd.
Sothoron’s links to the Mudd family are not conclusive. Additionally, the man who held Booth’s horse outside Ford’s Theater, “Peanut John” Burroughs, has the same last name as a family connected to the Sothorons. Again, it is inconclusive.

The Wikipedia site states that Herold (b. 1842) attended Charlotte Hall Military Academy. Webster Sothoron (b. 1841) was a student there.

Anna Cecilia Mudd Blandford (a sister of Dr. Mudd) was the woman who there was a newspaper report about in the Philadelphia Press, November 25 1857, “A Tournament in American Style”, p. 2. Col. Sothoron was also at the event. It locates them at the same event of the Maryland “landed gentry” and indicates, but does not prove the Mudd and Sothoron families knew each other in the Confederate underground.

Anyone have any thoughts or comments about this inconclusive coincidental information (or trivia?).