Following Thompson’s introduction of Booth that Sunday morning in November, Mudd gave this explanation of what happened next: “Booth inquired if I knew any parties in this neighborhood who had any fine horses for sale. I told him there was a neighbor of mine who had some very fine traveling horses, and he said he thought if he could purchase one reasonable he would do so, and would ride up to Washington on him instead of riding in the stage. The next evening [here Mudd means Sunday evening following church] he rode to my house and staid [sic] with me that night, and the next morning purchased a rather old horse.”16
On this point, the veracity of Mudd’s explanation begins to fall apart. While the evidence supports Booth’s being introduced to Mudd at St. Mary’s Church on Sunday morning and carrying a letter of introduction to him from Patrick Martin, it does not support Mudd’s claim that Booth purchased a horse from Mudd’s neighbor the next day. Three separate pieces of evidence place Booth back in Washington at his room in the National Hotel on Monday, November 14, the day Mudd claimed Booth bought the horse and rode him back to Washington.
George Washington Bunker, clerk at the National Hotel in Washington where Booth had a room, testified at the conspiracy trial that Booth was back in his hotel room on November 14. He supported his testimony with a memo prepared from the hotel register.17 A second piece of evidence is found in a letter written by Booth to J. Dominic Burch, manager of the Bryantown Tavern where Booth spent the night of November 11. Booth’s letter is dated November 14, 1864, and addressed from the National Hotel. In his letter Booth requests Burch to return an item left by Booth on the stagecoach.18 This letter supports the conclusion that Booth not only was back in his hotel room on Monday, but that he returned from Bryantown by stagecoach and not on horseback as Mudd claimed.
A third piece of evidence, which proves that Booth could not have purchased the horse during his November visit as Mudd claimed, is found in the testimony of Thomas Gardiner. Gardiner was the nephew of George Gardiner, Mudd’s nearest neighbor and the man from whom Booth purchased the horse. Thomas Gardiner testified at the conspiracy trial that he was present when Booth purchased the horse, and that his uncle had him deliver the horse to Booth at the Bryantown tavern “the next day.”19 While Gardiner could not swear to the exact day Booth bought the horse, he guessed that Booth bought it in the latter part of November and that he, Gardiner, delivered the horse the following day, a Tuesday. If Gardiner’s memory was correct, Booth could not possibly have purchased the horse on that Monday in November, as Mudd claimed, and ridden it back to Washington.
If Booth did not purchase the horse from Mudd’s neighbor at the time of his November visit, when did he purchase it, and why did Mudd lie about it? The answer can be pieced together from the testimony of John Thompson and John F. Hardy, another of Mudd’s neighbors. Both Thompson and Hardy testified at the conspiracy trial about the events of Saturday, April 15. Hardy told the trial judges that Mudd stopped by his house late Saturday afternoon on his way home from Bryantown while Booth was still at Mudd’s house resting. During his conversation with Hardy, Mudd told him that he had heard that Lincoln had been shot and that a man named Booth had shot him. Hardy went on to testify of having seen the man named Booth at St. Mary’s Church on two separate occasions: “I saw him [Booth] some time before Christmas, at church, one Sunday. ... Some time again I saw him at the same place, and asked if that was the same man; and the answer was ‘Yes.’”20 When Hardy was asked how long the two times were apart he answered: “I think about a month. I think it [the first meeting] was some time in November.... I think both times that I saw him there were before Christmas. ... [I]t strikes me it must have been in November when I first saw him there.”21
According to Hardy, Booth was in Charles County on two occasions, once in November, and a second time, in December. Although Booth was in Charles County a second time, did he meet with Mudd, and if so, what evidence supports a second meeting? The evidence comes from Mudd himself.22
Following Mudd’s conviction he was sentenced to life in prison at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, a series of small islands off of the Florida Keys. Mudd and conspirators Samuel Arnold, Michael O’Laughlen, and Edman Spangler were placed under a military escort assigned to accompany them to Fort Jefferson. In charge of the guard was Captain George W. Dutton, a member of the Veteran Reserve Corps. On Dutton’s return to Washington after delivering his prisoners to Fort Jefferson, a reporter from the Washington Evening Star interviewed him. The following day an article appeared in the Star that quoted Dutton as having had a conversation with Mudd about his relationship with Booth.23 On hearing about Dutton’s claim, Joseph Holt, judge advocate general and the man in charge of the prosecution during the trial, called Dutton to his office and had him write out a report in the form of an affidavit. According to Dutton, Mudd had confided to him that he knew all along that the injured patient who came to his house the morning after Lincoln was assassinated was John Wilkes Booth, and farther, he knew that Booth had killed Lincoln.
Dutton also claimed that Mudd admitted to having met with Booth and John Surratt and a man named Louis Wiechmann in December of 1864 at Booth’s hotel room in Washington. This claim of a meeting between Mudd and Surratt had been made by government prosecutors to show that Mudd’s involvement with Booth went deep into the conspiracy. Mudd’s attorney Thomas Ewing had denied the meeting and introduction. Testifying at the trial, Wiechmann told the commissioners that he had been present at the meeting and spoke of Mudd’s introducing Booth to John Surratt. Wiechmann had gotten the date of the meeting wrong, however, and Ewing seized the opportunity to attempt to impeach Wiechmann’s damaging testimony. Wiechmann had told the commissioners the meeting took place on the fifteenth of January. Ewing produced several witnesses to prove that Mudd was nowhere near Washington during the month of January and was at home on the 15th and not in Washington as Wiechmann claimed. Ewing accused Wiechmann of lying. In his summation to the commission, Ewing said, “There is no reliable evidence at all that [Dr. Mudd] ever met Booth before the assassination except once on Sunday in November last.”24 The military commission thought otherwise. They believed Wiechmann. Ewing’s attempt to disprove that the meeting ever took place seriously jeopardized Mudd’s credibility at the time of the trial. Now Dutton’s affidavit further eroded Mudd’s credibility, claiming that Mudd knew his injured patient was Booth all along.
When Mudd received word of Dutton’s affidavit he responded to it with an affidavit of his own. In his response, Mudd denied that he had told Dutton that he knew his patient was John Wilkes Booth. Surprisingly Mudd did admit to the meeting in Washington as described by Wiechmann and denied by Ewing. Mudd wrote that the meeting did not occur on January 15, 1865, as Wiechmann had claimed, but on December 23 two days before Christmas. Mudd seemed to justify his failure to admit to the second meeting at the time of his trial simply because Wiechmann had gotten the date wrong. It was this sort of technical evasion of the truth that got Mudd arrested in the first place.
In his affidavit, Mudd gave the details of the Washington meeting. In the course of his description he let slip a damaging admission. He told of a second meeting with Booth in Charles County a few days before the meeting on December 23 in Washington. This second meeting corresponded to the second time that Hardy claimed he saw Booth at St. Mary’s Church shortly “before Christmas.” In describing the Washington meeting, Mudd wrote in his affidavit:
We [Mudd and Booth] started down one street, and then up another, and had not gone far when we met Surratt and Wiechmann. Introductions took place and we turned back in the direction of the hotel. After arriving in the room, I took the first opportunity presented to apologize to Surratt for having introduced him to Booth—a man I knew so little concerning. This conversation took place in the passage in front of the room (hallway) and was not over three minutes in duration.... Surratt and myself returned and resumed our former seats (after taking drinks ordered) around a centre table, which stood midwa
y the room and distant seven or eight feet from Booth and Wiechmann. Booth remarked that he had been down to the country a few days before, and said that he had not yet recovered from the fatigue. After ward he said he had been down in Charles County, and had made me an offer to purchase of my land, which I confirmed by an affirmative answer [emphasis added]; and he further remarked that on his way up [to Washington] he lost his way and rode several miles off the track.25
Mudd admits that Booth had been down in Charles County a second time during which the two men had met. Mudd states that Booth “had made me an offer to purchase of my land, which I confirmed by an affirmative answer.” Booth’s reason for returning to Charles County was to solicit the help of another Confederate agent by the name of Thomas Harbin. To do this, Booth needed Mudd’s help.
Harbin, who worked as an agent for the Confederate Secret Service, maintained a signal camp in King George County on the Virginia side of the Potomac. He was a native of Charles County, however, and knew Mudd well. Both men lived within five miles of Bryantown. Before the war Harbin had served as Postmaster for Bryantown. Following the outbreak of hostilities he undertook handling the mail of the Confederate States government.
Among Harbin’s “mail agents” were Samuel Mudd and John Surratt. These men helped to pass documents, newspapers, and letters between Richmond and points north. The process was simple. Letters from the Confederacy arrived by mail agent and were turned over to a trusted agent who saw that they received proper postage and handling by one of the friendly post offices in the area. The Federal postal system delivered the mail to the appropriate parties in the North. The reverse, of course, was also true in that local post offices handled mail from points north directed to Richmond. These letters were usually placed inside envelopes addressed to one of the mail agents in Charles County who saw that they were safely carried across the river to Virginia.26 Harbin was among the several agents that dealt in clandestine mail and documents. Whether Booth, on hearing of Harbin and his exploits, asked Mudd if he would arrange a meeting between the two or whether Mudd volunteered Harbin is not known. What is known is that Mudd arranged a meeting between Booth and Harbin for Sunday December 18.
Evidence that such a meeting occurred comes from Harbin himself. In an 1885 interview with newspaper columnist George Alfred Townsend, Harbin told of coming across the Potomac River from Virginia to meet with Booth in December. The meeting was set up by Samuel Mudd and took place at the Bryantown Tavern. Townsend describes what happened:
After church that [December] day, Booth went into Bryantown a mile or two distant and in plain sight was introduced by Dr. Mudd at the village hotel to Mr Thomas Harbin who was the principal signal officer or [Confederate] spy in the lower Md counties.
Harbin gave me all the particulars concerning Booth. He told me that at the tavern that Sunday it was Dr. Mudd who introduced him to Booth who wanted some private conversations. Booth then outlined a scheme for seizing Abraham Lincoln and delivering him up in Virginia.
Harbin was a cool man who had seen many liars and rogues go to and fro in that illegal border and he set down Booth as a crazy fellow, but at the same time said that he would give his cooperation.27
Whatever Harbin may have thought of Booth, he agreed to join his conspiracy. The enlistment of Harbin into Booth’s capture scheme was an important one. He would later prove vital to Booth’s attempt to escape after crossing the Potomac River into Virginia.28
Following his meeting with Harbin, Booth returned to Mudd’s house where he spent the night. The next morning Booth and Mudd rode over to George Gardiner’s farm a short distance away where Booth purchased a horse from Gardiner.29 It was distinguished by having lost one eye, which didn’t affect its ability to carry a rider wherever he might need to go. Booth asked Gardiner to have the horse delivered by his nephew Thomas L. Gardiner to the Bryantown Tavern the next day, Tuesday.30
After taking possession of the horse in Bryantown, Booth visited the local blacksmith shop of Peter Trotter in the company of Dr. Mudd, where he had a new set of shoes made for his horse. When Trotter had finished, Booth and Mudd rode off together.31 Having signed on Harbin and purchased a new horse, Booth rode back to Washington, where he checked into the National Hotel on Thursday, December 22. The following day Booth met again with Samuel Mudd, evidently by appointment, this time in Booth’s room at the National Hotel.
Louis Wiechmann’s account of the meeting in Washington at Booth’s hotel room differed little from Mudd’s later account. Whatever the details of the meeting, including how long it lasted and what was discussed, one thing is certain: as a result of Mudd’s introducing John Surratt to Booth, Surratt agreed to join Booth as one of his band of conspirators. Booth now had four good men in tow: Sam Arnold, Mike O’Laughlen, Thomas Harbin, and John Surratt. Surratt, like Harbin, was an accomplished agent who enjoyed the confidence of the highest-ranking officers of the Confederate government.
John Harrison Surratt Jr. was the youngest of three children born to Mary Surratt and John Harrison Surratt Sr. Isaac, the oldest son, had gone to Texas before the war and enlisted in the Confederate army shortly after the shelling of Fort Sumter. Anna, the middle child, was closest to her mother, sharing the duties of running a household. At the outbreak of the war Anna was attending Catholic school in Bryantown. John was attending St. Charles College, a Catholic seminary located near Baltimore. It was here that John first met and became good friends with Louis Wiechmann, a friendship that would have grave consequences for the Surratt family in only a few short years. In August of 1862, John Surratt Sr. died, leaving Mary a widow with substantial debts. John and Anna returned home from their schooling at the time of their father’s death to help their mother manage the tavern business.32
Located thirteen miles southeast of Washington, the Surratt Tavern was a natural stopping point for travelers passing through southern Maryland on their way to the capital. The tavern served as both a hostelry and residence. By 1862 it had become a center of secessionist activity. Its principal value lay in its location along the primary route into Washington and the Confederate sympathies of its owner. It served as the post office for the surrounding area, which made it ideal for receiving and distributing Confederate mail.33
John Surratt Sr. had served as postmaster until his death in August, and on his return from the seminary John Surratt Jr. replaced his father in this civil service post. Undoubtedly, it was at this time that John began working for the Confederate underground that was flourishing throughout the area. He was eighteen years old and a prime candidate for the army. His job as postmaster exempted him from Federal service while his underground activities satisfied his desire to serve the Southern cause without having to stand in the direct line of fire. It seemed he had the best of both worlds.
By the time Samuel Mudd introduced Surratt to Booth he was one of the Confederacy’s better agents and had been granted considerable responsibilities as a courier between Richmond and points north. The tavern had become a “safe house” along the courier route between Richmond and Washington, a fact that had to involve the de facto cooperation of Mary Surratt.34 All sorts of Confederate agents passed to and fro throughout the area, finding the tavern a safe place to stop over.
In November of 1863, John was removed as postmaster after serving thirteen months. In writing to a friend at the time, he said it was due to “disloyalty.”35 His removal had no effect on John’s subversive activities, however. The Surratt Tavern remained a safe house and focal point for clandestine activity even without the post office. By the time of John’s enlistment into Booth’s conspiracy to capture Lincoln, his contacts were considerable. He brought credibility to Booth’s operation, but more importantly, he brought the vital contacts along the courier route that Booth needed if he were to successfully make his way to Richmond with his grand prize. He was also in touch with Judah P. Benjamin, the Confederate secretary of state, which potentially gave Booth an ear in Richmond.
Thanks to Mudd,
John Surratt was now in the fold. Indirectly Mudd was also responsible for Booth’s next recruit, George Andrew Atzerodt, alias Andrew Atwood. Born in 1835 in the Kingdom of Prussia, Atzerodt emigrated with his parents in 1844 to the small village of Germantown in Montgomery County, Maryland. In 1857 Atzerodt and his brother John moved to the southern Maryland village of Port Tobacco where the two brothers went into the carriage-painting business. When the business failed soon after the start of the war, John went to Baltimore where he secured a position on the staff of James McPhail, provost marshal of Maryland. George, however, remained in Port Tobacco where he began a successful trade in ferrying men and materiel back and forth across the Potomac River for the Confederacy.
Soon after Thomas Harbin and John Surratt joined in Booth’s conspiracy they paid Atzerodt a visit. Booth’s newest recruits convinced Atzerodt to join with them. His knowledge of the river was important. Three days after Atzerodt’s hanging in July 1865, the Baltimore American described his connection: “He carried on painting [carriages] in Port Tobacco until last fall [1864] when he met with John H. Surratt and a man named Harbew [Harbin]. Surratt induced him to join in the conspiracy of abducting the President Atzerodt’s knowledge of men and the country in the vicinity of Port Tobacco, and, in fact, of all the counties bounding on the Potomac gave to the conspirators a valuable assistant. He was well acquainted with Herold . . . who was also engaged in the conspiracy. Surratt. . . sent for Atzerodt to come to Washington. ... Surratt introduced Atzerodt to Booth.”36
Booth’s recruitment was proceeding well thanks to Samuel Mudd and his contacts. Next on Booth’s list of recruits was David Herold. Herold was another member brought into the fold by John Surratt. As with Atzerodt, Herold was recruited in January. Twenty-two years old at the time, Herold lived with his mother and several sisters in a row house in the District of Columbia, a short distance from the entrance to the Washington Navy Yard located on Eighth Street. He was employed at the Navy Yard pharmacy. Herold’s job at the pharmacy provided Booth with ready access to pharmaceuticals such as chloroform that might be needed to subdue a resisting president.
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