|
Chapter 8. |
Accused No. 4: A Country doctor, was accused of setting BOOTH's leg when the actor BOOTH showed up at 4:00 in the morning of Saturday, April 15, 1865, (5 1/2 hours after the assassination). Captured by the Government on Friday, April 21, 1865 at his home near Bryantown, Maryland. After questioning Dr. MUDD was allowed to stay on his farm over the weekend and on Monday, Apr. 24th four men took him by horse and buggy to Washington D.C. where, because he was a Doctor and a Gentleman, he was put in Carroll Prison instead of on the ironclad prison ships. He was clamped in regular handcuffs instead of wrist irons. [REF: #5 pg191 Brought to Trial: Dr. SAMUEL A. MUDD, was a thin man with a mild, timid look, "entirely devoid of any nobility of character." Everyone felt he was guilty, since it was brought out at the trial that BOOTH had visited him in Maryland and he had met BOOTH in Washington D.C, notably the day before the second inauguration when the Kidnapping had been planned for the following day on the East steps of the Capitol. It was beyond anyone's belief that Dr. MUDD could have set BOOTH's leg, having spend the hole day in his house and not guessed this was BOOTH. Dr. MUDD literally convicted himself through evasiveness and a criminally faulty memory. [REF: #5 pg198 Trial Sentence: Dr. SAMUEL A. MUDD, age 32 was sentenced to "Life in Prison" on 30 June 1865. When an epidemic of yellow fever caused the death of the prison doctor, of Dry Tortugas, Florida he volunteered to serve. President ANDREW JOHNSON pardoned him in Feb. of 1868 after serving 3 years. He died in 1933, age 100 years old. End of Chapter 08.