- Home
- Search This Site
- Slavery: Colonial Era
- Slavery: Revolutionary Era
- Slavery: Pre-Civil War Era
- Slavery: Charles County
- Samuel A. Mudd
- The Civil War
- 1864: A Very Bad Year
- John Wilkes Booth
- The Booth Escape Route
- The Accused
- Prison & Penitentiary
- The Conspiracy Trial
- Conviction
- The Dry Tortugas
- Attempted Escape
- Prison Life
- Yellow Fever
- Dr. Mudd Pardoned
- Arnold/Spangler Pardoned
- The Final Years
- Reference Library
- Contact Us
7/10/1865: General Ewing's Appeal to President Johnson
Source: Samuel A. Mudd Pardon File B-596, U.S. National Archives, College Park, Md. RG 204.
Dr. Mudd’s attorney, General Thomas Ewing, had Mrs. Mudd prepare an affidavit describing Booth’s visit to the Mudd farm in case it could somehow be useful. It wasn’t admitted as evidence, and the trial ended without the Court seeing it.
After the trial, General Ewing had Mrs. Mudd prepare an updated affidavit, and sent it to President Johnson on July 10, 1865, asking that Dr. Mudd’s sentence be set aside. General Ewing’s transmittal letter is presented below.
President Johnson did not set Dr. Mudd’s sentence aside, and on July 15th, Dr. Mudd and his three companions were informed of their sentences. Mrs. Mudd’s first affidavit of June 16, 1865, and her second affidavit of July 6, 1865 are also included in this Source Documents section.
Note the P.S. concerning an alleged confession of George Atzerodt at the end of General Ewing’s request to President Johnson below. General Ewing wants to bring Atzerodt's statement to President Johnson's attention since he believes the statement proves that Dr. Mudd was not part of the conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln.
Washington, D.C.
No. 12 North "A" Street
July 10th 1865
His Excellency Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Sir,
I enclose herewith the affidavit of Sarah F. Mudd, wife of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd who has recently been tried before a Military Commission on the charge of conspiracy to assassinate the President and other Chief Officers of the Government, and also the affidavits of Dr. J. H. Blanford, Mrs. Elizabeth A. Dyer and Sylvester Mudd in corroboration of her statements - to all of which I ask your Excellency's most earnest attention, in connection with the record in that case.
Mrs. Mudd's affidavit, if accepted as truthful, shows:
1st That the testimony of Norton as to the accused having entered his room at the National on the 3rd of March enquiring for Booth is false - and that Evans' statement in corroboration of Norton that Mudd came to Washington on either the 1st, 2nd or 3rd of March is also false.
Her statement would not have been taken to refute the evidence of these witnesses (because it was fully and overwhelmingly refuted on the trial by the evidence of Thomas Davis, J. H. Blanford, Frank Washington, Betty Washington, Mary, Fannie, Emily and Henry L. Mudd, and John Davis) were it not for the fact that the Special Judge Advocate insisted on the truth of the statements of Evans and Norton, who were strangers to Mudd, against the flatly contradictory evidence of these nine witnesses, who all knew him intimately. And it is not unfair to presume that the Court were greatly influenced by its legal advices all on questions of the weight of evidence, as they were controlled by them on all other questions arising in the trial.
2d Mrs. Mudd's affidavit also shows that her husband was not here between the 23rd of December and the 23rd of March - and therefore the statement of Weichmann as to the interview between Booth, Surratt and Mudd at the National, which that witness swears occurred about the middle of January, is not entitled to credence. On this point she corroborates the evidence of Betty Washington, Thomas Davis, Henry L. Mudd Jr., Mary Mudd and Frank Washington - whose evidence the Special Judge Advocate also declared in his argument could not outweigh the statements of the one witness Weichmann, who was a stranger to the accused - while the five witnesses contradicting him knew the accused intimately.
3d Her affidavit also shows that on Tuesday after the assassination her husband could not have denied to Williams and Gavacan (the detectives) that the two strangers had been at his house, as they swear he did. In this she is corroborated by Dr. George Mudd - and also by Lieut. Lovett who was quoted by the Special Judge Advocate in his argument as having sworn to the denial, whereas in fact he swears to the opposite.
4th Her affidavit also shows that on Friday after the assassination the accused spoke of Booth's boot having been found, voluntarily, and not as claimed only after a threat was made to search the house. In this she is corroborated by Hardy.
5th Her affidavit also shows that the boot was not discovered until Thursday - so that her husband practiced no concealment in not producing it Tuesday.
6th It also shows that she saw and conversed with Booth when he was at her husband's house last fall - and again saw and talked with them while her husband was gone to Bryantown on Saturday the 15th April - and that he was then so thin, pale and haggard, and so thoroughly disguised by his false whiskers, that she did not expect at all that he was the same man she met and talked with last fall. This point is of great importance because the Special Judge Advocate assumed it was proved beyond all question that the accused recognized the crippled man as Booth - while there is no evidence to show that he did, except the bare fact that he had met him in the fall or winter before; added to Colonel Wells' statement which is only of an indistinct impression as to what he inferred from Mudd's statements, while all other witnesses say the accused denied having recognized Booth while at his house. Mrs. Mudd says also that she is certain her husband did not recognize or suspect the crippled man to be Booth at any time that day.
On this point of recognition the accused was not able to offer any direct evidence of a single witness - because none whose saw him last fall saw him that Saturday again.
This was, perhaps, a controlling point with the Court against the accused - and therefor Mrs. Mudd's statement as to her own failure to recognize or suspect the crippled man to be Booth is of vital importance.
7th Mrs. Mudd's affidavit also shows that Herald could not have gone to Bryantown with her husband, as the Judge Advocate claims, (8 miles) as he was gone not over half an hour. In this she is corroborated by Primus Johnson and others (see page 25 of argument).
8th It also shows that he pointed out the short route through the swamp (to Parson Wilmer's) to Herold before going to Bryantown and before he learned of the assassination. And that when he returned home, Booth and Herold had left the house and he never spoke to them after he heard of the assassination. In this she is corroborated by her husband's admissions in evidence, and by Betty Washington. See Col. Wells statement also; and pages 35 & 36 of argument, and evidence of there cited.
The Special Judge Advocate claimed that the evidence showed that after the accused returned from Bryantown, where he heard of the assassination, and that a man named Booth was one of the assassins, he aided the escape and concealment of Booth and Herald. The Court doubtless accepted that fact as proved on the Judge Advocate's assertion and on the statement of the detective Gavacan as to Mudd's statement on the subject to him. (See page 27 of argument.) Gavacan's statement as to Mudd's denial on Tuesday that the two men had been at his house at all was clearly shown false (see pages 29 & 30 argument). And I think that evidence on this point as to Mudd's having gone with Booth and Herold part of the way was also fairly overthrown (pages 27 & 28 argument). But the Special Judge Advocate had the ear of the Court, and was with it throughout its deliberations on this case, I am informed - and I have no doubt the Court therefore accepted as true the falsehood that Mudd said he helped the men off after he returned from Bryantown. That act of pointing the route to Wilmer's was the only act shown to have been done by Mudd which could have implicated him had he from the first known the crime and the criminal. Mrs. Mudd's affidavit shows that that act was done before her husband knew of the assassination, or suspected the crippled man to be Booth. And that after he knew of the assassination he did not see Booth or Herold. (See pages 35 & 36 argument)
9th Her affidavit also shows that her husband's suspicions towards those men were not aroused until she told him, an hour after they had gone, that the whiskers of the crippled man were false. And that he then ordered his horse to go to Bryantown to tell the authorities about them, and was only prevented doing so by her fears and entreaties. And that in consequence of her advice only he delayed until next day and sent the information through Dr. George Mudd. This delay was dwelt on by the Special Judge Advocate as proof of his complicity with the assassins, and had, I think, great weight with the Court.
10th The Special Judge Advocate asserted that it was shown that he accused secreted Booth and Herold in the woods Saturday night. There is not a word of evidence justifying that assertion - and Mrs. Mudd's affidavit shows it to be utterly erroneous.
11th Some evidence was offered by the Prosecution (Mary and Milo Simms) going to show that John H. Surratt frequented the house of the accused last year and year before, which, though fully disproved, (see argument pages 14, 15 & 16) was yet insisted on by the Assistant Judge Advocate as true. Mrs. Mudd says she had seen John H. Surratt at his mother's house, at Surrattsville Hotel, before the war - but that she never saw him at the house of the accused or heard of his having been there.
In connection with this letter and its enclosures I ask the attention of your Excellency to my letter to you of the 3rd instant, in which I pointed out in the argument of the Special Judge Advocate eleven material errors in his statement of the evidence against Dr. Mudd, which errors I was not permitted by the Court to call to its attention. In addition to these errors in statements of fact his argument was full of erroneous inferences and inconsequent deductions.
As one of the legal advisers of the Court in its discussions and deliberations on the evidence he was in position to give effect to his conclusions in the finding and sentence which followed, and doubtless did much to lead them into the errors, into which he himself had fallen. I venture to say that the recorded evidence, aside from the affidavits herewith offered, does not support the finding of the Court - and that not only was there not sufficient proof to exclude reasonable doubt of guilt, but that there was not such proof as made guilt more probable that innocence.
But by these affidavits, if they be accepted as true, all doubt is removed, and the innocence of Dr. Mudd is established beyond question. For, if the interview described by Weichmann did occur, it was on the 23rd of December, and was followed by no further intercourse between the accused and Booth or Surratt either written or oral. If can not be claimed that the conspiracy was entered into then, at Booth's first introduction to Surratt and in presence of Weichmann, who was a stranger to Mudd and Booth, and known to Surratt as an employee of the War Department. Besides, the evidence shows that the conspiracy to capture the President - as Booth first professed its object to his accomplices - was got up late in January or in February. If Dr. Mudd had on the 23rd of December had such a scheme proposed to him, and if he had assented to it, no one can doubt that he would have subsequently met the conspirators or some of them. But it is shown he did not see Booth or Surratt after the 23rd of December, and did not even call on either when he was here on the 23rd of March, and at Giesboro on the 11th of April. Admit, what I think the recorded evidence and Mrs. Mudd's statement clearly show, that Dr. Mudd did not have any intercourse whatever with Booth or Surratt after the 23rd of December - before the assassination - and it follows beyond dispute that he was not informed of or assenting to the conspiracy.
If this be so, his entire innocence then follows from the evidence, and these affidavits.
For even though he recognized Booth while at his house, which he constantly asserted and still asserts he did not, and which Mrs. Mudd's failure to recognize him makes most probable, yet no one can suppose that Booth on reaching his house disclosed his horrid crime. In fact the open manner of Mudd in going out with Herold to get his father's carriage, and keeping the men without the slightest effort at concealment, or appearance of concern, at his house, makes it to my mind certain that he did not suspect their guilt before he got to Bryantown. When he got back to his house the men had gone, and he saw them no more - they taking the route he has shown Herold in the forenoon. When his wife told him of the false whiskers of the crippled man, his suspicions were aroused, and his first impulse was that of an innocent man and a good citizen - to go at once to Bryantown and tell of these men to the authorities. Her fears and and entreaties led him to delay sending word to them until next day, when he did it fully and truthfully.
I feel confident that the recorded evidence on an examination will not be found to sustain the finding and sentence of the Court in whole or in part - and that had the case been tried in a Civil Court no jury would have hesitated to rendered a verdict of acquittal. And I feel safe in appealing to the Judge Advocate General, who was probably present at the deliberations of the Court, to sustain me in the assertion that but for the evidence, 1st: as to Mudd's seeking Booth at the National Hotel on the 3rd of March; and 2nd: as to his having seen and assisted Booth and Herold after his return from Bryantown on the 15th of April; and 3rd: as to his unexplained delay until the 16th to communicate his information to the authorities, the Commission itself would have entirely acquitted him. On these three vital points Mrs. Mudd's testimony, if it could have been received by the Court, would have wholly relieved her husband of suspicion; and procured his acquittal. I appeal to your Excellency to receive it now, and give at the weight and effect it would probably have had if received by the Court. It would be not unworthy of Executive consideration if the prisoner had been tried and convicted by a Civil Tribunal with the benefit of every safeguard of liberty provided by law. But as he was tried before the tribunal where many of these safeguards were relaxed, inapplicable or ineffective - and especially as he was borne down by more false testimony than ever took the life of an innocent man in a Court of Justice - I can not be mistaken in believing that you will hear and give effect to the sworn statements of her, who (though she be the wife of the prisoner) knows more of the vital issues of the cause that all other witnesses together; and of whose perfect truth no one, who knows or talks with her, can doubt.
On this corroborated testimony of Mrs. Mudd, I respectfully ask on behalf of the prisoner, his wife, and children, a remission of his sentence.
I am, Sir, Very Respectfully,
Your Obedient Servant
Thomas Ewing Jr.
Atty
P.S.
Since writing the foregoing, I have seen an alleged confession by Atzerodt, in which he is reported as saying that two weeks before the assassination Booth told him that "he had sent provisions and liquors to Dr. Mudd's to be used by the conspirators on the route to Richmond with the President, and that he was acquainted with him, and had letters to him." If such a statement was in fact made by Atzerodt, the statement by Booth as to his having sent anything to the house of the prisoner we can show was utterly false. The statement on its face shows that Mudd was not then a conspirator; for if he were, why should Booth mention the letters? Would he not have told Atzerodt that he was a conspirator with them? I am informed by Mr. Stone, who was counsel for Herold, that he said he tried to dissuade Booth from going so far out of his route - but that Booth said he must get his leg set and dressed. And that they did not while there intimate to Mudd what had been done. If Herold's confession is in the hands of the Judge Advocate, I ask that it be considered with this application for remission of sentence.
Thomas Ewing Jr.
Attorney
No. 12 North "A" Street
July 10th 1865
His Excellency Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Sir,
I enclose herewith the affidavit of Sarah F. Mudd, wife of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd who has recently been tried before a Military Commission on the charge of conspiracy to assassinate the President and other Chief Officers of the Government, and also the affidavits of Dr. J. H. Blanford, Mrs. Elizabeth A. Dyer and Sylvester Mudd in corroboration of her statements - to all of which I ask your Excellency's most earnest attention, in connection with the record in that case.
Mrs. Mudd's affidavit, if accepted as truthful, shows:
1st That the testimony of Norton as to the accused having entered his room at the National on the 3rd of March enquiring for Booth is false - and that Evans' statement in corroboration of Norton that Mudd came to Washington on either the 1st, 2nd or 3rd of March is also false.
Her statement would not have been taken to refute the evidence of these witnesses (because it was fully and overwhelmingly refuted on the trial by the evidence of Thomas Davis, J. H. Blanford, Frank Washington, Betty Washington, Mary, Fannie, Emily and Henry L. Mudd, and John Davis) were it not for the fact that the Special Judge Advocate insisted on the truth of the statements of Evans and Norton, who were strangers to Mudd, against the flatly contradictory evidence of these nine witnesses, who all knew him intimately. And it is not unfair to presume that the Court were greatly influenced by its legal advices all on questions of the weight of evidence, as they were controlled by them on all other questions arising in the trial.
2d Mrs. Mudd's affidavit also shows that her husband was not here between the 23rd of December and the 23rd of March - and therefore the statement of Weichmann as to the interview between Booth, Surratt and Mudd at the National, which that witness swears occurred about the middle of January, is not entitled to credence. On this point she corroborates the evidence of Betty Washington, Thomas Davis, Henry L. Mudd Jr., Mary Mudd and Frank Washington - whose evidence the Special Judge Advocate also declared in his argument could not outweigh the statements of the one witness Weichmann, who was a stranger to the accused - while the five witnesses contradicting him knew the accused intimately.
3d Her affidavit also shows that on Tuesday after the assassination her husband could not have denied to Williams and Gavacan (the detectives) that the two strangers had been at his house, as they swear he did. In this she is corroborated by Dr. George Mudd - and also by Lieut. Lovett who was quoted by the Special Judge Advocate in his argument as having sworn to the denial, whereas in fact he swears to the opposite.
4th Her affidavit also shows that on Friday after the assassination the accused spoke of Booth's boot having been found, voluntarily, and not as claimed only after a threat was made to search the house. In this she is corroborated by Hardy.
5th Her affidavit also shows that the boot was not discovered until Thursday - so that her husband practiced no concealment in not producing it Tuesday.
6th It also shows that she saw and conversed with Booth when he was at her husband's house last fall - and again saw and talked with them while her husband was gone to Bryantown on Saturday the 15th April - and that he was then so thin, pale and haggard, and so thoroughly disguised by his false whiskers, that she did not expect at all that he was the same man she met and talked with last fall. This point is of great importance because the Special Judge Advocate assumed it was proved beyond all question that the accused recognized the crippled man as Booth - while there is no evidence to show that he did, except the bare fact that he had met him in the fall or winter before; added to Colonel Wells' statement which is only of an indistinct impression as to what he inferred from Mudd's statements, while all other witnesses say the accused denied having recognized Booth while at his house. Mrs. Mudd says also that she is certain her husband did not recognize or suspect the crippled man to be Booth at any time that day.
On this point of recognition the accused was not able to offer any direct evidence of a single witness - because none whose saw him last fall saw him that Saturday again.
This was, perhaps, a controlling point with the Court against the accused - and therefor Mrs. Mudd's statement as to her own failure to recognize or suspect the crippled man to be Booth is of vital importance.
7th Mrs. Mudd's affidavit also shows that Herald could not have gone to Bryantown with her husband, as the Judge Advocate claims, (8 miles) as he was gone not over half an hour. In this she is corroborated by Primus Johnson and others (see page 25 of argument).
8th It also shows that he pointed out the short route through the swamp (to Parson Wilmer's) to Herold before going to Bryantown and before he learned of the assassination. And that when he returned home, Booth and Herold had left the house and he never spoke to them after he heard of the assassination. In this she is corroborated by her husband's admissions in evidence, and by Betty Washington. See Col. Wells statement also; and pages 35 & 36 of argument, and evidence of there cited.
The Special Judge Advocate claimed that the evidence showed that after the accused returned from Bryantown, where he heard of the assassination, and that a man named Booth was one of the assassins, he aided the escape and concealment of Booth and Herald. The Court doubtless accepted that fact as proved on the Judge Advocate's assertion and on the statement of the detective Gavacan as to Mudd's statement on the subject to him. (See page 27 of argument.) Gavacan's statement as to Mudd's denial on Tuesday that the two men had been at his house at all was clearly shown false (see pages 29 & 30 argument). And I think that evidence on this point as to Mudd's having gone with Booth and Herold part of the way was also fairly overthrown (pages 27 & 28 argument). But the Special Judge Advocate had the ear of the Court, and was with it throughout its deliberations on this case, I am informed - and I have no doubt the Court therefore accepted as true the falsehood that Mudd said he helped the men off after he returned from Bryantown. That act of pointing the route to Wilmer's was the only act shown to have been done by Mudd which could have implicated him had he from the first known the crime and the criminal. Mrs. Mudd's affidavit shows that that act was done before her husband knew of the assassination, or suspected the crippled man to be Booth. And that after he knew of the assassination he did not see Booth or Herold. (See pages 35 & 36 argument)
9th Her affidavit also shows that her husband's suspicions towards those men were not aroused until she told him, an hour after they had gone, that the whiskers of the crippled man were false. And that he then ordered his horse to go to Bryantown to tell the authorities about them, and was only prevented doing so by her fears and entreaties. And that in consequence of her advice only he delayed until next day and sent the information through Dr. George Mudd. This delay was dwelt on by the Special Judge Advocate as proof of his complicity with the assassins, and had, I think, great weight with the Court.
10th The Special Judge Advocate asserted that it was shown that he accused secreted Booth and Herold in the woods Saturday night. There is not a word of evidence justifying that assertion - and Mrs. Mudd's affidavit shows it to be utterly erroneous.
11th Some evidence was offered by the Prosecution (Mary and Milo Simms) going to show that John H. Surratt frequented the house of the accused last year and year before, which, though fully disproved, (see argument pages 14, 15 & 16) was yet insisted on by the Assistant Judge Advocate as true. Mrs. Mudd says she had seen John H. Surratt at his mother's house, at Surrattsville Hotel, before the war - but that she never saw him at the house of the accused or heard of his having been there.
In connection with this letter and its enclosures I ask the attention of your Excellency to my letter to you of the 3rd instant, in which I pointed out in the argument of the Special Judge Advocate eleven material errors in his statement of the evidence against Dr. Mudd, which errors I was not permitted by the Court to call to its attention. In addition to these errors in statements of fact his argument was full of erroneous inferences and inconsequent deductions.
As one of the legal advisers of the Court in its discussions and deliberations on the evidence he was in position to give effect to his conclusions in the finding and sentence which followed, and doubtless did much to lead them into the errors, into which he himself had fallen. I venture to say that the recorded evidence, aside from the affidavits herewith offered, does not support the finding of the Court - and that not only was there not sufficient proof to exclude reasonable doubt of guilt, but that there was not such proof as made guilt more probable that innocence.
But by these affidavits, if they be accepted as true, all doubt is removed, and the innocence of Dr. Mudd is established beyond question. For, if the interview described by Weichmann did occur, it was on the 23rd of December, and was followed by no further intercourse between the accused and Booth or Surratt either written or oral. If can not be claimed that the conspiracy was entered into then, at Booth's first introduction to Surratt and in presence of Weichmann, who was a stranger to Mudd and Booth, and known to Surratt as an employee of the War Department. Besides, the evidence shows that the conspiracy to capture the President - as Booth first professed its object to his accomplices - was got up late in January or in February. If Dr. Mudd had on the 23rd of December had such a scheme proposed to him, and if he had assented to it, no one can doubt that he would have subsequently met the conspirators or some of them. But it is shown he did not see Booth or Surratt after the 23rd of December, and did not even call on either when he was here on the 23rd of March, and at Giesboro on the 11th of April. Admit, what I think the recorded evidence and Mrs. Mudd's statement clearly show, that Dr. Mudd did not have any intercourse whatever with Booth or Surratt after the 23rd of December - before the assassination - and it follows beyond dispute that he was not informed of or assenting to the conspiracy.
If this be so, his entire innocence then follows from the evidence, and these affidavits.
For even though he recognized Booth while at his house, which he constantly asserted and still asserts he did not, and which Mrs. Mudd's failure to recognize him makes most probable, yet no one can suppose that Booth on reaching his house disclosed his horrid crime. In fact the open manner of Mudd in going out with Herold to get his father's carriage, and keeping the men without the slightest effort at concealment, or appearance of concern, at his house, makes it to my mind certain that he did not suspect their guilt before he got to Bryantown. When he got back to his house the men had gone, and he saw them no more - they taking the route he has shown Herold in the forenoon. When his wife told him of the false whiskers of the crippled man, his suspicions were aroused, and his first impulse was that of an innocent man and a good citizen - to go at once to Bryantown and tell of these men to the authorities. Her fears and and entreaties led him to delay sending word to them until next day, when he did it fully and truthfully.
I feel confident that the recorded evidence on an examination will not be found to sustain the finding and sentence of the Court in whole or in part - and that had the case been tried in a Civil Court no jury would have hesitated to rendered a verdict of acquittal. And I feel safe in appealing to the Judge Advocate General, who was probably present at the deliberations of the Court, to sustain me in the assertion that but for the evidence, 1st: as to Mudd's seeking Booth at the National Hotel on the 3rd of March; and 2nd: as to his having seen and assisted Booth and Herold after his return from Bryantown on the 15th of April; and 3rd: as to his unexplained delay until the 16th to communicate his information to the authorities, the Commission itself would have entirely acquitted him. On these three vital points Mrs. Mudd's testimony, if it could have been received by the Court, would have wholly relieved her husband of suspicion; and procured his acquittal. I appeal to your Excellency to receive it now, and give at the weight and effect it would probably have had if received by the Court. It would be not unworthy of Executive consideration if the prisoner had been tried and convicted by a Civil Tribunal with the benefit of every safeguard of liberty provided by law. But as he was tried before the tribunal where many of these safeguards were relaxed, inapplicable or ineffective - and especially as he was borne down by more false testimony than ever took the life of an innocent man in a Court of Justice - I can not be mistaken in believing that you will hear and give effect to the sworn statements of her, who (though she be the wife of the prisoner) knows more of the vital issues of the cause that all other witnesses together; and of whose perfect truth no one, who knows or talks with her, can doubt.
On this corroborated testimony of Mrs. Mudd, I respectfully ask on behalf of the prisoner, his wife, and children, a remission of his sentence.
I am, Sir, Very Respectfully,
Your Obedient Servant
Thomas Ewing Jr.
Atty
P.S.
Since writing the foregoing, I have seen an alleged confession by Atzerodt, in which he is reported as saying that two weeks before the assassination Booth told him that "he had sent provisions and liquors to Dr. Mudd's to be used by the conspirators on the route to Richmond with the President, and that he was acquainted with him, and had letters to him." If such a statement was in fact made by Atzerodt, the statement by Booth as to his having sent anything to the house of the prisoner we can show was utterly false. The statement on its face shows that Mudd was not then a conspirator; for if he were, why should Booth mention the letters? Would he not have told Atzerodt that he was a conspirator with them? I am informed by Mr. Stone, who was counsel for Herold, that he said he tried to dissuade Booth from going so far out of his route - but that Booth said he must get his leg set and dressed. And that they did not while there intimate to Mudd what had been done. If Herold's confession is in the hands of the Judge Advocate, I ask that it be considered with this application for remission of sentence.
Thomas Ewing Jr.
Attorney
Copyright © 2012 Robert Summers. All rights reserved.
