Mudds aim to clear name of doc who treated Lincoln killer

[L Verge]

Booth comes to Southern Maryland with letters of introduction from Canadian exiles. Those letters direct him to Dr. William Queen and Dr. Samuel Mudd. Dr. Queen gets word to Dr. Mudd to come to a Catholic church outside of his own parish (frowned upon in those days) to meet with Booth - supposedly under the guise of Booth looking to buy land and maybe a horse (the latter of which Dr. Mudd does acquire for him). Otherwise, Dr. Mudd claims that his land is all they discussed. And yet, Dr. Mudd did not own his farm - his father still owned it.

Dr. Queen is elderly and dies shortly before the assassination, but in the fall of 1864, Queen had at least a son-in-law who could have squired Booth around the neighborhood in developing plans; but it is Mudd who introduces Booth to Thomas Harbin and also to John Surratt, Jr., and from there the Southern Maryland role in at least the kidnapping begins to grow. If that doesn't indicate involvement, at least in the beginning....

We can fast forward to the well-known history of what occurred with Dr. Mudd and his rendering assistance to Booth and Herold for over twelve hours, his reluctance to notify authorities, etc. I do not think that Mudd knew of the assassination until the fugitives arrived at his door, but the evidence leading up to that point makes him at least liable for conspiracy.

I have known members of the Mudd families my entire life and have been friends with those who have fought the good fight. They know my feelings and that my greatest argument is that they try too hard to disavow their Southern Maryland heritage of the Civil War when Dr. Mudd's feelings are well covered in his letters to his wife and his rantings to the Catholic journalist Orestes Browning. I do applaud their tenacity, however.

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BTW: Gen. Tidwell and Mr. Hall thought they had found evidence of a third doctor in Southern Maryland with whom Booth could make contact -- a Dr. Garland. There was a Dr. Garland in St. Mary's County (again Southern Maryland), but from what we could find, he might have been the Dr. Garland that went to Richmond and served Jefferson Davis as a doctor during the war. We were never able to make the connection however.