His Name Is Mudd

[L Verge]

This time, I am not picking on Dr. Samuel A. Mudd! In the process of trying to find some information for descendants of the doctor via his sister, I ran into a very good comment on the old comment, "his name is mud." Many of our visitors still associate that phrase with our not-so-innocent Dr. Sam, and we try to explain that the term goes back centuries before. Here's a good explanation of its history:

... it’s little wonder that people might still connect the common “his name is mud” expression with the doctor. Even in the 2007 film “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” actor Nicolas Cage as the lead character, Ben Gates, promotes this misconception. But as it turns out, the phrase already was in print in 1823 — a decade before Samuel Mudd even was born — as people continued to expand on the literal meaning of mud as a mix of water and earthy matter.

As early as the 1500s, the word was used to describe things that were worthless or polluting. By 1703, “Hell Upon Earth,” an account of London’s lowlife, defined mud as “a fool or thick-skulled fellow.” Hence, in 1823, John Badcock in “Slang — A Dictionary of the Turf” wrote: “Mud — a stupid, twaddling fellow. ‘And his name is mud!’ ejaculated upon the conclusion of a silly oration.” Similarly, to “throw mud” (make questionable accusations) dates to 1762 while mud became a synonym for opium as early as 1922 and for coffee in 1925.

I would also throw in the term, "ugly as a mud fence," which was another very derogatory term dating back to times when the lower classes could not afford standard fencing and resorted to the earth to form their boundaries.

[LincolnMan]

I argue against this misconception a lot. I don’t suppose it will ever change. Thanks for posting Laurie.

[mikegriffith1]

(11-10-2018 10:29 PM)L Verge Wrote:  . . . "his name is mud." Many of our visitors still associate that phrase with our not-so-innocent Dr. Sam. . . .

You still think that Dr. Samuel Mudd was guilty? I think the view that Mudd was guilty was pretty thoroughly debunked at the conspiracy trial by Thomas Ewing. Perhaps partly because of Ewing's powerful response to the military commission's claims, the majority of modern scholars who have written on the subject have argued that Mudd was innocent.

It is interesting to note that when the Army Board for Correction of Military Records examined the case in 1992, all five members concluded that the trial had been a gross miscarriage of justice (John McHale, Dr. Samuel Mudd and the Lincoln Assassination, Dillon Press, 1995, p. 139). Additionally, when President Carter and President Reagan reviewed the case, they both concluded that Mudd had been wrongfully convicted and that he was in fact innocent (McHale, pp. 131-136). It should be noted that they based their conclusions partly on the basis of their staffs' recommendations, which means their respective staffs both concluded that Mudd was innocent and unjustly convicted.

McHale discusses a revealing incident that occurred in December 1867 at the Fort Jefferson prison, an incident that gives us a good idea of how the government obtained so much false testimony. The Radical Republicans in Congress sent one of their trusted aides, a man named Gleason, to Fort Jefferson to talk with Dr. Mudd, Samuel Arnold, and Edman Spangler, mainly Arnold and Spangler. Ostensibly, Gleason's purpose was to take statements from the three men. But when Arnold and Spangler agreed to be interviewed, they discovered that Gleason's real purpose was not to get their side of the story at all but to get one or both of them to falsely implicate President Andrew Johnson in the assassination:

But the next day, when they appeared before Gleason, the men found out what he really had in mind. Congress wasn't interested in either Arnold or Spangler as such, or even the old Booth story as they knew it. What Gleason wanted was someone to lie under oath and tie President Johnson into Lincoln's assassination. If Arnold and Spangler agreed to cooperate, he said, they would be freed from Fort Jefferson and taken back to Washington as witnesses. The offer was a tempting one, and it is to the prisoners' credit that they didn't buy it. At one point in the interview, Major Andrews [the prison commander] threatened to have Arnold shot if he didn't help Gleason, but the former Confederate soldier stood his ground. Andrews backed down when the post surgeon intervened and told them to quit harassing a sick man. (p. 117)​

This is especially revealing because this was during the time when the Radicals and President Johnson were openly at war over Reconstruction and over firing Stanton, and when the Radicals were preparing to try to remove Johnson from office.

Also recall that Sanford Conover, when he thought that the Radicals were going to double-cross him, came clean and admitted to Johnson that the Radicals had asked him to try to get false evidence to implicate him in the assassination. Conover even provided documents, and Johnson showed the documents to his cabinet.

[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.”

[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.

[John Fazio]

Laurie, et al.:

Without commenting on the guilt or innocence of Dr. Mudd, nor on the authenticity of "the kidnap plot" , my views on both, I believe, being already known, l wish to thank Laurie for giving us the history of the phrase "his name is mud", because I, for one, never knew of it.

John

[Warren]

Mrs Surratt claimed not to have recognized Paine. Mudd claimed he didn't recognize Booth. Gee, I wonder why?

That makes me think; I wonder if either one of them would have recognized Booth's body? Doubtful, I suppose.

Anyway, his name is still mud to me. Not exactly a great role-model. And thanks Laurie for that info.

[AussieMick]

Warren, my first thought is to agree with you that 'his name is mud to me'.

But I 've always had a terrible problem with the following quotation ... and Dr Mudd's actions seem to have some link to it.

“If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”

― E.M. Forster

[bob_summers]

When talking about Dr. Mudd's guilt or innocence, you have to be clear whether you are talking about Lincoln's assassination, or Booth's escape.

Regarding the assassination, Ed Steers, one of Dr. Mudd's harshest critics, says in Chapter 7 of his book, "It seems clear that Dr. Mudd did not know of, or participate in, any plot to murder the president." I think everyone agrees with Steers on this.

Regarding Booth's escape, Dr. Mudd's guilt arises because he didn't turn Booth over to the authorities when he learned of the assassination.

Andrew Johnson's pardon sums it up nicely:

"I am satisfied that the guilt found by the said judgment against the Samuel A. Mudd was of receiving, entertaining, harboring, and concealing John Wilkes Booth and David E. Herold, with the intent to aid, abet and assist them in escaping from justice after the assassination of the late President of the United States, and not of any other or greater participation or complicity in said abominable crime."

[RJNorton]

Hi Bob. The other day I tried to find your wonderful Dr. Mudd website, but I drew a blank. Have you taken it down, or is there a new URL? (I was still able to find the information I needed by going to your site on the Internet Archive.)

[bob_summers]

(11-14-2018 02:58 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Hi Bob. The other day I tried to find your wonderful Dr. Mudd website, but I drew a blank. Have you taken it down, or is there a new URL? (I was still able to find the information I needed by going to your site on the Internet Archive.)

Hi Roger. Yes, I took it down - not from lack of interest, but from lack of energy. I turned 80 recently and have cut back on a lot of things to enjoy being an active grandparent. I have about 10,000 pictures I can show you of my two grandkids if you like!

[JMadonna]

I met a civil war buff in McDonald's the other day who informed me that Roger Mudd former CBS correspondent is a descendant of Dr. Sam. I think he was missing a couple fries because I'm sure I would have heard that before on this board.

Was he right or not?

[AussieMick]

I know Wikipedia isnt always 100% correct but Roger Mudd's entry has this ...
"Mudd is related to Samuel Mudd, the doctor who was imprisoned for aiding and conspiring with John Wilkes Booth after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln."

and there's this
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/25/us/dr...booth.html

which has "The television journalist Roger Mudd is a member of the extended family."

[L Verge]

(11-15-2018 04:15 AM)AussieMick Wrote:  I know Wikipedia isnt always 100% correct but Roger Mudd's entry has this ...
"Mudd is related to Samuel Mudd, the doctor who was imprisoned for aiding and conspiring with John Wilkes Booth after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln."

and there's this
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/25/us/dr...booth.html

which has "The television journalist Roger Mudd is a member of the extended family."

Roger Mudd spoke at one of the early Surratt conferences about growing up with the name of Mudd. As for his position on the Mudd family tree, I believe that it is a bit removed from Dr. Sam's branch.

I remember that Louise Mudd Arehart, the feisty youngest granddaughter of Dr. Sam who worked long and hard to save the Mudd home in Charles County, Maryland, and turn it into a museum, thought that Roger was too far removed to be considered kin. She insinuated that the journalist only used the name for publicity -- and also thought that her cousin, Dr. Richard Mudd, did the same thing.

[Warren]

I remember years ago Roger Mudd brought it up on a TV program. It was a news segment about Dr. Mudd (or so I recall, so take it with a grain of sodium chloride).