Samuel Mudd

Samuel Alexander Mudd
Samuel Alexander Mudd, M.D.
Born	(1833-12-20)December 20, 1833 Charles County, Maryland, U.S.
Died	January 10, 1883(1883-01-10) (aged 49) Waldorf, Maryland, U.S.
Occupation	Medical Doctor
Known for	being John Wilkes Booth's doctor
Spouse(s)	Sarah Frances Dyer Mudd
Children	Andrew Jerome Mudd Lillian Augusta Mudd Thomas Dyer Mudd Samuel Alexander Mudd, II Henry Mudd Stella Marie Mudd Edward Joseph Mudd Rose De Lima Mudd Mary Eleanor Mudd
Parent(s)	Henry Lowe Mudd Sarah Ann Reeves

Samuel Alexander Mudd (December 20, 1833 – January 10, 1883) was an American physician who was imprisoned for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

While working as a doctor in Southern Maryland, Mudd also employed slaves on his tobacco farm, and declared his belief in slavery as a God-given institution. The Civil War seriously damaged his business, especially when Maryland abolished slavery in 1864. At this time, he first met Booth, who was planning to kidnap Lincoln, and Mudd was seen in company with three of the conspirators. But his part in the plot, if any, remains unclear.

After mortally wounding Lincoln on April 14, 1865, Booth rode with conspirator David Herold to Mudd’s home in the early hours of the 15th for surgery on his fractured leg, before crossing into Virginia. Some time that day, Mudd must have learned of the assassination, but did not report Booth’s visit to the authorities for another 24 hours. This appeared to link him to the crime, as did his various changes of story under interrogation, and on April 26, he was arrested. A military commission found him guilty of aiding and conspiring in a murder, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment, escaping the death penalty by a single vote.

Mudd was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson and released from prison in 1869. Despite repeated attempts by family members and others to have it expunged, his conviction has never been overturned.

Born in Charles County, Maryland, Mudd was the fourth of 10 children of Henry Lowe and Sarah Ann Reeves Mudd. He grew up on Oak Hill, his father's tobacco plantation of several hundred acres, which was located 30 miles (48 km) southeast of downtown Washington, D.C., and which was worked by 89 slaves.

At the age of 15, after several years of home tutoring, Mudd went off to boarding school at St. John's Literary Institute now known as Saint John's Catholic Prep School in Frederick, Maryland. Two years later, he enrolled at Georgetown College in Washington, D.C.. He then studied medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, writing his thesis on dysentery.