The Civil War
When Abraham Lincoln was seeking the Republican nomination for President in 1860, he said: “Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is...” But most Southerners, including Southern Marylanders, didn’t believe Lincoln would “let it alone.” He failed to carry Maryland or a single southern state in the November 6, 1860 presidential election.
Feelings against Lincoln were so high in Southern Maryland that shortly after the election was over a group of Charles County citizens gave their neighbor Nathan Burnham, who had voted for Lincoln, two weeks to pack up and leave the county. Four men, including William A. Mudd, were appointed to expel him if he didn’t leave voluntarily.
Whites in Charles County also began military preparation in the event Maryland seceded from the Union. Various military units were formed, members acquired uniforms and weapons, and the units began to drill regularly. These included the Smallwood Rifles, the Nanjemoy Rifle Company, the Bryantown Minutemen, and the Mounted Volunteers of Charles County. We don’t know if Dr. Mudd was an active member of any of these military units, but he was undoubtedly sympathetic to their purpose, which was to preserve slavery.
Jeremiah Dyer, Dr. Mudd’s brother-in-law, and Jeremiah T. Mudd, a cousin of Dr. Mudd, were active in collecting money to arm and equip the Mounted Volunteers. When asked at the Lincoln assassination conspiracy trial about the purpose of the military unit he belonged to, Jeremiah Dyer said “I do not know what the organization was particularly for.” He then added that “our company broke up immediately on the breakout of the war ... some of them went to Virginia and joined the rebel army.”
Civil War finally erupted on April 12, 1861 when Confederate forces in Charleston, South Carolina opened fire on the Union garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Jeremiah Dyer testified that he fled to Richmond with members of his unit after the war began to avoid being arrested for disloyalty. However, after a month in Richmond, he decided not to join the Confederate Army after all, returned home, signed a loyalty oath, and settled back into the life of a tobacco farmer.
The Southern Maryland slave system and the economy it supported both began to disintegrate. In her 1906 book, The Life of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, Nettie Mudd wrote:
The Negroes, very soon after the war commenced, became imbued with the idea of freedom, and as this idea gained stronger hold in their minds their efficiency as servants diminished.
Not only did their efficiency diminish, but they began to run away. In August 1861, Congress passed the First Confiscation Act which authorized the President to seize any property, including slaves, employed in service to the Confederacy. While this Act allowed the Army to provide refuge to fugitive slaves in the Confederacy, it did not technically apply to fugitive slaves from states not in rebellion, including Maryland. Nevertheless, as Union soldiers began to flood into Southern Maryland, slaves began to run away from their masters and seek refuge in the Army’s camps.
More than ten thousand Union troops were stationed along the Charles County shore of the Potomac River opposite Virginia to prevent the Confederate Army from crossing into Maryland. General Joseph Hooker’s corps was stationed at Chicamuxen Creek, about ten miles west of Dr. Mudd’s farm. Its assignment was to protect the Union artillery batteries guarding the Potomac River. Runaway slaves sought refuge at General Hooker’s camp, Camp Fenton, and other Army camps around Charles County, as seen in the following runaway slave ads:
In November 1861, 400 Union soldiers of the 74th New York Volunteer Infantry, commanded by Colonel Charles K. Graham, fought skirmishes with rebel soldiers near Port Tobacco. Colonel Graham reported that when leaving the area “a large number of negroes followed, some on board the gunboats, but a majority in a large launch, which by some means they had obtained.”
Two Little Boys
For the Mudds, the runaways started in March 1862 when two little slave boys ran away from the farm of Dr. Mudd’s father, Henry Lowe Mudd. The boys eluded the slave-catching patrols that operated between Bryantown and Washington, and found refuge at Fort Good Hope, a Union Army encampment located in what is now the Anacostia section of Washington. The fort was manned by a brigade under the command of Colonel William L. Tidball of the 59th New York Volunteer Infantry.
When Dr. Mudd tried to retrieve the two little boys, the soldiers refused to let them go. A new law had just gone into effect prohibiting the military from returning escaped slaves to their owners. Frustrated, Dr. Mudd wrote the following March 18, 1862 letter to his cousin Henry Alexander Clarke, a Washington businessman. Dr. Mudd’s description of one the boys as a “yellow boy” meant the boy was light-skinned.
Cousin Alex,
Pa has two little boys in one of the encampments on Good Hope Hill - their names are Hillary, a black boy son of old Leck, the other is a yellow boy named Ambrose, son of old Miley of Aunt Reeve's estate. We have sent after them twice and they will neither give them up or drive them from the camp, nor will they permit you to enter the lines to take them yourself. My object in addressing this to you is to find out the means under the present state of affairs to reclaim my servants, or slaves. I have offered a reward of fifty dollars, which I am in hopes will compensate for any trouble, without the hazard of life. I would go to the War Department & enquire of Mr. Stanton, if the people of Maryland are to be treated as Secessionist, after paying a tax of $2,500,000 to carry on the war & pay a prospective tax of three cents per pound on leaf tobacco.
Pa, Jim, & my family are all very well with the exception of myself. I am in bed sick as a horse at this time. Remember me to cousin Em and family & believe me yours most truly, etc.
Sam A. Mudd
A month later, on April 16, 1862, President Lincoln signed a bill abolishing slavery in Washington, D.C. From then until the end of the war, Washington was a magnet for Southern Maryland slaves who ran away from their owners. “These stampedes are becoming common,” reported the June 19, 1862 issue of the Port Tobacco Times.
Three months later, July 17, 1862, Washington became an even greater magnet for Maryland slaves when Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act which declared that slaves owned by disloyal masters were free. Many Maryland slaves thought their masters fit that description exactly. As a result, fugitive Maryland slaves now routinely claimed that their former owners were disloyal when they appeared at Army encampments seeking safe haven.
When Dr. Mudd tried to retrieve the two little boys, the soldiers refused to let them go. A new law had just gone into effect prohibiting the military from returning escaped slaves to their owners. Frustrated, Dr. Mudd wrote the following March 18, 1862 letter to his cousin Henry Alexander Clarke, a Washington businessman. Dr. Mudd’s description of one the boys as a “yellow boy” meant the boy was light-skinned.
Cousin Alex,
Pa has two little boys in one of the encampments on Good Hope Hill - their names are Hillary, a black boy son of old Leck, the other is a yellow boy named Ambrose, son of old Miley of Aunt Reeve's estate. We have sent after them twice and they will neither give them up or drive them from the camp, nor will they permit you to enter the lines to take them yourself. My object in addressing this to you is to find out the means under the present state of affairs to reclaim my servants, or slaves. I have offered a reward of fifty dollars, which I am in hopes will compensate for any trouble, without the hazard of life. I would go to the War Department & enquire of Mr. Stanton, if the people of Maryland are to be treated as Secessionist, after paying a tax of $2,500,000 to carry on the war & pay a prospective tax of three cents per pound on leaf tobacco.
Pa, Jim, & my family are all very well with the exception of myself. I am in bed sick as a horse at this time. Remember me to cousin Em and family & believe me yours most truly, etc.
Sam A. Mudd
A month later, on April 16, 1862, President Lincoln signed a bill abolishing slavery in Washington, D.C. From then until the end of the war, Washington was a magnet for Southern Maryland slaves who ran away from their owners. “These stampedes are becoming common,” reported the June 19, 1862 issue of the Port Tobacco Times.
Three months later, July 17, 1862, Washington became an even greater magnet for Maryland slaves when Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act which declared that slaves owned by disloyal masters were free. Many Maryland slaves thought their masters fit that description exactly. As a result, fugitive Maryland slaves now routinely claimed that their former owners were disloyal when they appeared at Army encampments seeking safe haven.
The Great Escape
On Saturday night, August 29, 1863, with a full moon to guide their way, forty slaves ran away from the farms of Dr. Mudd, his father Henry Lowe Mudd, and Jeremiah Dyer. They timed their escape well. Slaves weren’t expected to be at work on Sunday, and it was not unusual for slaves to be out Saturday night as they went to visit family members on other farms. Escaped slaves tended to be men, so these escapees were probably all male field hands.
The escaping slaves included Elzee Eglent and Dick Washington from Dr. Mudd’s farm, and Sylvester Eglent, John Henry Eglent, and Henry Simms from the farm of Dr. Mudd’s father. Jeremiah Dyer complained afterwards that because he lost so many slaves, he had to pay free workers to finish his tobacco harvest.
The slaves testified at the Lincoln assassination trial that they ran away after Sylvester Eglent overheard Dr. Mudd and Jeremiah Dyer discussing plans to send a number of them to Richmond to help the Confederate Army build fortifications for Richmond’s defense.
At the trial, Sylvester Eglent testified:
Last August a twelvemonth ago, I heard him say he was going to send me, Elzee, my brother Frank, and Dick Gardner and Lou Gardner to Richmond to build batteries... That was the last Friday in the August before last, and I left the Saturday night following... Forty head of us went in company.
Elzee Eglent testified that Dr. Mudd "...told me the morning he shot me that he had a place in Richmond for me."
Jeremiah Dyer denied that he and Dr. Mudd had talked about sending slaves to Richmond.
Two days after the great escape, five of the forty slaves who escaped from the Mudd and Dyer farms filed complaints with the military in Washington, claiming that Dr. Mudd and others were disloyal and were planning to send slaves to Richmond to help in the defense of that city. Richard Washington and Henry Simms filed one complaint. Elvey Eagleon, John Henry Eagleon, John Sylvester Eagleon filed the other. The Eagleon slaves’ last name is also spelled as Eglin and Eglent in other documents of the times.
The first complaint said:
Headquarters, Provost Marshal's Office
Washington, D.C. August 31, 1863
Richard Washington
Henry Simms
Colored
Make statements that Dr. Samuel Mud, Henry Burch, and Henry Mud, residents of Brientown, Charles Co., Md. are now and have been for a month past enrolling the colored slaves of that District and vicinity for the Rebel Army and that they have to their certain knowledge harbored, aided, and comforted Rebel officers and soldiers ever since the rebellion commenced. They further state that these parties have carried away colored persons, both free and slave into the Rebel lines and that they are now engaged in this work - that these parties caught a slave named George Hawkins while trying to make his escape to the city of Washington, and carried him back to Brientown, beat him in a most unmerciful manner, and then carried him into the rebel lines. This slave was from the farm of James Mudd, who is, and has been a long time in the Rebel army.
Simms and Washington state that they were to be carried into the Rebel army. Simms belongs to Henry Mud and Washington to Samuel Mud, and state that there is a quantity of arms and accoutrements buried in the ground in the vicinity of Samuel Mud's house and that as some cavalry were making a search in the vicinity, Samuel Mud's wife ran into the kitchen and threw a bundle of Rebel mail into the fire and Henry Mud said after the cavalry had gone that he had hid a lot of arms under the bed and that as they were not found, he considered himself a smart man.
Richard Washington states that Dr. Samuel Mud, his master, is one of the parties who assisted in enrolling the names of the slaves, amongst whom was himself and Elsey Engley, for the purpose of sending them south to go in the Rebel army as soldiers.
Mud lives in St. Charles Co., Md. - Brientown District, 3 miles above the town - has been in the habit of harboring Rebel soldiers.
These parties convey the slaves in wagons to landing in St. Mary's county, keep them in the woods until an opportunity presents itself to carry them off. Henry Burch watches and reports when the way is clear.
The second complaint said:
Washington D.C.
Aug 31st 1863
Elvey Eagleon, John Henry Eagleon, John Sylvester Eagleon States, I belong to Mr. Samuel Mud, in Charles Co Md. The said Dr. Samuel Mud has been in the habit of harboring Rebel officers & soldiers.
James Hurldy, Henry Burch, Henry L. Mud & Dr. Samuel Mud have enrolled a number of the slaves for the purpose of taking us south for the Rebel army. Jerry Mud is also one of the party, also Hobs Middleton who came from the Rebel army for the same purpose. Wm. A. Mud is one of the party. He has a son at home now, with his hand shot off who belongs to the Rebel army. Mr. Thomas Jameston is also one of the party, & was after Wm. Marshall to take him, but he escaped.
Mr. Samuel Mud took from the house of Henry L. Mud some arms that were a present to Samuel Cox in the Rebel army, by the ladies in the neighborhood. Miss Mary Clare Mud was one of the ladies. These arms were taken for the 6th of March 1863 by Mr. Baker, Mr. Wm Simms, & George Jarver. These arms consisted of swords. J. Smith took them to Centreville in a buggy.
The Army’s report of investigation said:
Capt:
I have the honor to report that on investigating the case in regards to certain parties in the State of Maryland charged by the contrabands with enrolling the slaves for the Rebel Army and various other charges.
The colored people both free and slave, also white people of undoubted loyalty, in Charles and Talbot counties, state the charge is without foundation. There is (I learn) a patrol composed of citizens who patrol the country around for the purpose of apprehending fugitive slaves, which, when caught, are placed in jail, until such time as their owners shall call for them, and then being considered unsafe to roam at large, are taken and sent south, to make their escape more uncertain. This, I find, are the grounds upon which the charges are founded.
Rufus McKinney living near Mt. Pleasant Ferry is now, and has been recruiting for the Confederate Army. I understand the Military Authorities of Baltimore have been trying to accomplish his arrest for some time but he had eluded their vigilance. I was informed McKinney was now at his place and that his arrest might be easily accomplished. Some information might be obtained of the Military Authorities at Baltimore, I think, if desired.
Birdy Mason and Benjamin Green in the vicinity of Marbry’s Landing, Charles Co., Md., have been seen to carry groceries, clothing, and men over the river to Virginia for the Confederate Army. They secret their boat in the marsh. Mr. Marbry is a loyal man, and could give some information in the matter.
J. Jarboe of Long Old Fields, Prince George Co., Md. has been confined in the Old Capitol Prison twice, but is still to all accounts a rebel. On the 6th of July 1863, Jarboe urged two young men of the same place to make an attack on a party of Col. Baker's detectives who were passing through the village, saying he would assist them, that he was prepared. These young men, two brothers, are the young men alluded to. They will give statements to the case if so required.
Jarboe has a son in the Confederate Army who has been there since the commencement of the rebellion. He came home some time since and went back again.
I am of the opinion that the majority of the people in the lower part of the state of Maryland, especially Charles County, are disloyal, and that the loyal people are deterred from giving information through fear. It is my impression it would be a good remedy to station a negro Regiment in their midst.
Your obedient servant,
John D. Johnson, Capt. Military Detec.
With slaves running away to freedom in Washington, D.C. or joining the Union Army, Dr. Mudd and other Southern Maryland farmers were unable to raise a crop in the summer of 1864. Farm income and land values in Southern Maryland fell sharply. Several people testified at the conspiracy trial that Dr. Mudd wanted to sell his farm.
The escaping slaves included Elzee Eglent and Dick Washington from Dr. Mudd’s farm, and Sylvester Eglent, John Henry Eglent, and Henry Simms from the farm of Dr. Mudd’s father. Jeremiah Dyer complained afterwards that because he lost so many slaves, he had to pay free workers to finish his tobacco harvest.
The slaves testified at the Lincoln assassination trial that they ran away after Sylvester Eglent overheard Dr. Mudd and Jeremiah Dyer discussing plans to send a number of them to Richmond to help the Confederate Army build fortifications for Richmond’s defense.
At the trial, Sylvester Eglent testified:
Last August a twelvemonth ago, I heard him say he was going to send me, Elzee, my brother Frank, and Dick Gardner and Lou Gardner to Richmond to build batteries... That was the last Friday in the August before last, and I left the Saturday night following... Forty head of us went in company.
Elzee Eglent testified that Dr. Mudd "...told me the morning he shot me that he had a place in Richmond for me."
Jeremiah Dyer denied that he and Dr. Mudd had talked about sending slaves to Richmond.
Two days after the great escape, five of the forty slaves who escaped from the Mudd and Dyer farms filed complaints with the military in Washington, claiming that Dr. Mudd and others were disloyal and were planning to send slaves to Richmond to help in the defense of that city. Richard Washington and Henry Simms filed one complaint. Elvey Eagleon, John Henry Eagleon, John Sylvester Eagleon filed the other. The Eagleon slaves’ last name is also spelled as Eglin and Eglent in other documents of the times.
The first complaint said:
Headquarters, Provost Marshal's Office
Washington, D.C. August 31, 1863
Richard Washington
Henry Simms
Colored
Make statements that Dr. Samuel Mud, Henry Burch, and Henry Mud, residents of Brientown, Charles Co., Md. are now and have been for a month past enrolling the colored slaves of that District and vicinity for the Rebel Army and that they have to their certain knowledge harbored, aided, and comforted Rebel officers and soldiers ever since the rebellion commenced. They further state that these parties have carried away colored persons, both free and slave into the Rebel lines and that they are now engaged in this work - that these parties caught a slave named George Hawkins while trying to make his escape to the city of Washington, and carried him back to Brientown, beat him in a most unmerciful manner, and then carried him into the rebel lines. This slave was from the farm of James Mudd, who is, and has been a long time in the Rebel army.
Simms and Washington state that they were to be carried into the Rebel army. Simms belongs to Henry Mud and Washington to Samuel Mud, and state that there is a quantity of arms and accoutrements buried in the ground in the vicinity of Samuel Mud's house and that as some cavalry were making a search in the vicinity, Samuel Mud's wife ran into the kitchen and threw a bundle of Rebel mail into the fire and Henry Mud said after the cavalry had gone that he had hid a lot of arms under the bed and that as they were not found, he considered himself a smart man.
Richard Washington states that Dr. Samuel Mud, his master, is one of the parties who assisted in enrolling the names of the slaves, amongst whom was himself and Elsey Engley, for the purpose of sending them south to go in the Rebel army as soldiers.
Mud lives in St. Charles Co., Md. - Brientown District, 3 miles above the town - has been in the habit of harboring Rebel soldiers.
These parties convey the slaves in wagons to landing in St. Mary's county, keep them in the woods until an opportunity presents itself to carry them off. Henry Burch watches and reports when the way is clear.
The second complaint said:
Washington D.C.
Aug 31st 1863
Elvey Eagleon, John Henry Eagleon, John Sylvester Eagleon States, I belong to Mr. Samuel Mud, in Charles Co Md. The said Dr. Samuel Mud has been in the habit of harboring Rebel officers & soldiers.
James Hurldy, Henry Burch, Henry L. Mud & Dr. Samuel Mud have enrolled a number of the slaves for the purpose of taking us south for the Rebel army. Jerry Mud is also one of the party, also Hobs Middleton who came from the Rebel army for the same purpose. Wm. A. Mud is one of the party. He has a son at home now, with his hand shot off who belongs to the Rebel army. Mr. Thomas Jameston is also one of the party, & was after Wm. Marshall to take him, but he escaped.
Mr. Samuel Mud took from the house of Henry L. Mud some arms that were a present to Samuel Cox in the Rebel army, by the ladies in the neighborhood. Miss Mary Clare Mud was one of the ladies. These arms were taken for the 6th of March 1863 by Mr. Baker, Mr. Wm Simms, & George Jarver. These arms consisted of swords. J. Smith took them to Centreville in a buggy.
The Army’s report of investigation said:
Capt:
I have the honor to report that on investigating the case in regards to certain parties in the State of Maryland charged by the contrabands with enrolling the slaves for the Rebel Army and various other charges.
The colored people both free and slave, also white people of undoubted loyalty, in Charles and Talbot counties, state the charge is without foundation. There is (I learn) a patrol composed of citizens who patrol the country around for the purpose of apprehending fugitive slaves, which, when caught, are placed in jail, until such time as their owners shall call for them, and then being considered unsafe to roam at large, are taken and sent south, to make their escape more uncertain. This, I find, are the grounds upon which the charges are founded.
Rufus McKinney living near Mt. Pleasant Ferry is now, and has been recruiting for the Confederate Army. I understand the Military Authorities of Baltimore have been trying to accomplish his arrest for some time but he had eluded their vigilance. I was informed McKinney was now at his place and that his arrest might be easily accomplished. Some information might be obtained of the Military Authorities at Baltimore, I think, if desired.
Birdy Mason and Benjamin Green in the vicinity of Marbry’s Landing, Charles Co., Md., have been seen to carry groceries, clothing, and men over the river to Virginia for the Confederate Army. They secret their boat in the marsh. Mr. Marbry is a loyal man, and could give some information in the matter.
J. Jarboe of Long Old Fields, Prince George Co., Md. has been confined in the Old Capitol Prison twice, but is still to all accounts a rebel. On the 6th of July 1863, Jarboe urged two young men of the same place to make an attack on a party of Col. Baker's detectives who were passing through the village, saying he would assist them, that he was prepared. These young men, two brothers, are the young men alluded to. They will give statements to the case if so required.
Jarboe has a son in the Confederate Army who has been there since the commencement of the rebellion. He came home some time since and went back again.
I am of the opinion that the majority of the people in the lower part of the state of Maryland, especially Charles County, are disloyal, and that the loyal people are deterred from giving information through fear. It is my impression it would be a good remedy to station a negro Regiment in their midst.
Your obedient servant,
John D. Johnson, Capt. Military Detec.
With slaves running away to freedom in Washington, D.C. or joining the Union Army, Dr. Mudd and other Southern Maryland farmers were unable to raise a crop in the summer of 1864. Farm income and land values in Southern Maryland fell sharply. Several people testified at the conspiracy trial that Dr. Mudd wanted to sell his farm.
