His Name Is Mudd

[RJNorton]

(11-11-2018 12:02 PM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  You still think that Dr. Samuel Mudd was guilty?

I, for one, think he was guilty. For me it boils down to the concept of vicarious liability.

Atzerodt admitted Mudd knew about the kidnap plot in one of his statements. Atzerodt said, "I am certain Dr. Mudd knew all about it, as Booth sent (as he told me) liquors & provisions for the trip with the President to Richmond, about two weeks before the murder to Dr. Mudd's."

Dr. Richard Mudd felt Samuel Mudd was innocent because he didn't know about the assassination plot.

People like O'Laughlen, Arnold, and Mudd were all guilty due to vicarious liability. They may not have been in on the assassination, but they all had knowledge of the kidnap plot and had time to inform the government of Booth's plans. Any one of them could have saved President Lincoln's life. Booth could have been arrested prior to April 14th.

In 1883 Dr. Samuel Mudd's cousin, Dr. George Dyer Mudd, was interviewed. He stated:

“I think there is no question that Sam Mudd immediately knew Booth, and that Booth told him that he had murdered the president. If he had possessed the moral courage to have said at once: ‘I will have nothing to do with assassination; I will give this man up to his government,’ he would have stood very differently toward himself, his family and his fame. But you see those rebel views he had held, that obstinacy of character, his prejudices, his false sense of honor, made him secrete his information till he had actually made himself an accessory after the fact.”

“You do not think, then, that he had any knowledge of Booth going to kill the president?”

“No, that design was entertained by Booth but a very little while before he did the deed. That Sam Mudd was privy to his scheme to kidnap the president I am confident; but when this man rode to his house he must have told Sam Mudd how he broke his leg and all the particulars. Their acquaintance had been considerable, far more than I had any suspicion of. Indeed, sir,” Dr. Mudd remarked, “if all the evidence had got before that Commission, Sam Mudd would have been hanged on the same gallows with the others - not for being privy to any assassination scheme, but he was in the abduction scheme.”