Neely’s attention was drawn to the name “James A. Mudd.” He wondered if the first name could have been transcribed incorrectly. In a separate article, Neely asked, “Did Smith get the first name wrong? Was he a little off in his estimate of the distance from Bryantown (Samuel A. Mudd lived five miles north of Bryantown)? Who was Smith?”24 Neely raised the possibility that James A. Mudd may actually have been Samuel A. Mudd. If so, Neely thought it raised interesting questions concerning the involvement of Samuel Mudd with Thomas Jones and his underground activities. Neely never answered the questions he raised in his article, concluding, “History may never know.” Fortunately, we do know. George W. Smith was elected sheriff of Charles County in November of 1857. His opponent had been Sylvester Mudd,25 Samuel Mudd’s cousin, suggesting that the Mudds were his political rivals. In the 1860 census Smith is listed simply as “Hotel Keeper” in Bryantown, and records show that he received a liquor license on May 24, 1860.26
Smith correctly identified Jones’s “munitions-runner” as James A. Mudd. He was not Samuel A. Mudd as Neely suspected, but the older brother of Samuel Mudd (1833–83), James Anthony Mudd (1830–1903).27 James Mudd lived in the Bryantown District of Charles County, Maryland, along with his father, Henry Lowe Mudd, his brother Samuel A. Mudd, his brother Henry Lowe Mudd Jr., his cousin George D. Mudd, and his cousins Henry Mudd and Sylvester Mudd, who were George Mudd’s brothers. The several Mudds, except for George Mudd, were strong Confederate supporters.28
The accusations against James Mudd in the fall of 1861 would resurface in the summer of 1863, only this time they would include his brother Samuel Alexander Mudd and their sister Mary Clare Mudd. Among the papers in the records of the provost marshal for the District of Columbia are two sets of charges filed by five runaway slaves of the Mudd family.29 The charges accused Samuel Mudd and several of his neighbors, including his brother and his sister, with several disloyal acts including the shipping of captive slaves south to Richmond where they were forced to help build the defenses surrounding that city. Samuel Mudd was also accused of being part of a slave-capturing posse that apprehended a runaway slave by the name of George Hawkins and “beating him in a most unmerciful manner and then carrying him into the Rebel Lines.”
The charges went farther, however. Two of the slaves, Henry Simms and Richard Washington,30 claimed that a quantity of arms and accoutrements were hidden by Samuel Mudd on his property, and while Union cavalry was searching the area, “Mudd’s wife ran into the kitchen and threw a bundle of Rebel mail into the fire” to prevent its being discovered by searching soldiers. These charges were supported by another set of charges filed by three other Mudd slaves31 who told the provost marshal that “Mr. Samuel Mud took from the house of Henry L. Mud some arms, that were made a present to Samuel Cox,32 in the Rebel army, by the ladies in the neighborhood. Miss Mary Clare Mud [Samuel Mudd’s sister] was one of the ladies. These arms were taken on the 6th of March by Mr. Baker, Mr. Wm. Simms, George Jarves. These arms consisted of swords. J. Smith took them to Centreville in a buggy.”33
The provost marshal responded to the charges by dispatching a military detective, Captain John D. Johnson, to Charles County to investigate. Johnson filed his report after interviewing several persons in Charles County concerning the allegations. In the report he confirmed the slave-capturing allegations: “There is a patrol 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.”34
Johnson continues his report by citing several individuals for various disloyal acts who are not named in the charges, and then concludes: “From information received, I am of the opinion that the majority of people, in the lower part of the state of Maryland, especially in Charles County, are disloyal, and that the loyal people, are detered [sic] from giving information, through fear. It is my impression it would be a good remedy to station a negro Regiment in their midst.”35
If the majority of people were disloyal one wonders who Johnson interviewed and how he was able to separate the evidence of disloyal people from loyal people. Despite such difficulty, however, Johnson concludes that the slaves who were rounded up were “fugitive slaves” and therefore under the control of the fugitive slave law and purview of the “Charles County patrol.” Johnson further explains that sending the captured runaway slaves south to Richmond was a reasonable remedy “to make their escape more uncertain.” The Fugitive Slave Law was technically still in force within the state of Maryland since Maryland was still “loyal.”
Clearly a slave-capturing patrol existed in Charles County whose task was to round up fugitive slaves and send them south back into slavery. Samuel Mudd and his brother Henry, along with other neighbors, were part of this “patrol.” Johnson says nothing about the charges of beating George Hawkins “in a most unmerciful manner” or of hiding and smuggling arms or of destroying “Rebel mail” by Mrs. Mudd. But the record speaks to these charges elsewhere.
Samuel Mudd’s activities tied him closely with the Confederate underground that operated throughout the area. While Booth and Mudd shared a common hatred for Lincoln, Mudd’s reasons were considerably more personal than Booth’s. By 1864, the Mudd family’s wealth in slaves had been wiped out by the policies of Abraham Lincoln. The loss of slaves was soon followed by a loss in land values. Emancipation took away the slave labor that was essential to tobacco farming. The entire economy of Charles County saw the loss of slave property that totaled between eight and ten million dollars as a result of Lincoln’s emancipation policies. When viewed from this perspective, the animosity toward Lincoln by the people of southern Maryland can be better appreciated. The climate was filled with bitter hatred for Lincoln. It was into this climate that John Wilkes Booth would come looking for help. But Booth had no contacts in southern Maryland. He needed an entree into the clandestine world of Confederate operations in the area. He desperately needed a key connection. To find that connection he would first travel north to Canada.
Part Two
The Deed
Nor do I deem it a dishonor in attempting to make for her a prisoner of this man, to whom she owes so much of misery.
John Wilkes Booth, November 1864
We trust some bold hand will pierce his heart with dagger point for the public good.
LaCrosse Daily Democrat, August 29, 1864
CHAPTER SIX
The Key Connection
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
The Tempest, 2.2
In mid-October Booth visited with his mother at Edwin’s house in New York City. The relationship between the two brothers had become seriously strained over their political differences. In her memoir Asia quoted Wilkes, “If it were not for mother I would not enter Edwin’s house, but she will leave there if we cannot be welcomed, and I do not want her to be unhappy for me.”1 Asia told of “stormy words” between the two brothers. They were “the last unkind ones that ever passed between them.”2
On October 16 he bid his mother goodbye and headed north to the Canadian province of Quebec. Two days later he registered at St. Lawrence Hall in Montreal, where he checked into room 150. St. Lawrence Hall had become the gathering place for Confederate agents in Montreal. Ostensibly Booth went to Canada to make arrangements to ship his theatrical wardrobe through the blockade to a Confederate port, but the length of his stay and his contacts while in Montreal suggest much more.
Booth was in Montreal a total of ten days, from October 18 through October 27. During that time he was seen in the presence of two men who were well-known Confederate agents based in Canada, George N. Sanders and Patrick C. Martin. Sanders was a Kentuckian who harbored a fanatical devotion for the Confederacy and an equally fanatical hatred for Lincoln. He had a history of associating wit
h European revolutionaries. While in Europe awaiting his confirmation as United States consul in London, he advocated the assassination of Napoleon III (Louis Napoleon).3 If true to form, Sanders undoubtedly urged Booth to go forward with a plot to assassinate Lincoln.
Booth’s other contact in Montreal was Patrick Charles Martin. At least one reliable witness at the conspiracy trial testified to seeing Booth and Martin together in the fall of 1864.4 Martin was a native New Yorker who had only recently been a liquor dealer in Baltimore. His career was not limited to liquor, however. Prior to the war he had extensive service at sea, where he had captained a variety of vessels. Following the outbreak of hostilities, Martin successfully ran the Union blockade on numerous occasions. His success soon made him a target of Federal authorities, and he escaped to Canada to avoid falling into Union hands. Once in Canada, Martin settled into more clandestine activities. He became one of the Confederacy’s principal agents in Montreal, which became known as “Little Richmond.”
A fellow Baltimorean, George R Kane, who formerly served as police marshal for that city, had joined Martin in Montreal. In November of 1863 Martin and Kane had been involved in organizing a force of armed men to free Confederate prisoners being held at Johnson’s Island, a Union prison camp located in Lake Erie just off of Sandusky, Ohio.5 The prison held 2,600 Confederate soldiers. The bulk of these prisoners were officers who organized themselves and the other inmates into a cohesive group. One of the ranking Confederate officers in prison, Brigadier General James A. Archer, was able to smuggle a letter to Secretary of War James Seddon. Archer’s letter was reminiscent of Union general August Willich’s report to Lincoln in May 1863, in which he claimed the prison and city of Richmond were lightly defended and susceptible to attack. Archer wrote Seddon that Johnson’s Island was weakly guarded and that taking over the prison camp would be relatively easy. Once in control of the camp, however, the prisoners would need some means to get off of the island. Archer asked for Seddon’s help.6 It was soon forthcoming.
Martin and Kane had devised a plan. It called for a force of armed Confederates to overpower the crew of the USS Michigan that was the only U.S. warship stationed on the Great Lakes near the prison camp. Once it was captured, the Confederates planned to turn the Michigan’s guns on the prison. Thus threatened, the prison guards would have no choice but to free the prisoners. Once freed, the prisoners would be carried off of the island and transported to Canada by boats commandeered on Lake Erie. From Canada they would make their way back to the Confederacy and Lee’s army.
Kane and Martin met an advanced contingent of two dozen men in Montreal. They expected upwards of two hundred more to join them near Johnson’s Island. The plan was abandoned when word of the raid somehow leaked, alerting Union forces that an attempt at overtaking the prison was brewing. The prison was reinforced and put on alert. Abandoning their plan to free the prisoners on Johnson’s Island, Martin and Kane retreated to Montreal where they soon continued their covert operations against the United States.
A year after the aborted raid, Martin and Booth now met in another scheme designed to free Confederate prisoners. This time the daring plan involved exchanging a captured President Lincoln. Both operations were intended to free desperately needed Confederate prisoners of war—by force in the first instance and through an exchange agreement in the second. General Ulysses Grant had suspended the exchange of prisoners after he assumed command of the Union armies in March of 1864.7 Grant knew that the North could replace its soldiers more readily than the South. By suspending prisoner exchange, Grant hoped to seriously deplete Lee’s army of much needed men. By the fall of 1864 the strategy was working, and the Confederacy was experiencing a serious reduction in manpower. So serious was the problem that Confederate leaders contemplated enlisting slaves into the army. The growing numbers of Union prisoners in Confederate prisons was also putting an enormous strain on Confederate food supplies, which only made matters worse. Both sides looked to ways to liberate prisoners, not only to relieve the suffering but to help replenish frontline troops. Capturing Lincoln would give the Confederates the ultimate bargaining chip in forcing the North to reinstitute prisoner exchange.
Meeting with Martin in October, Booth made arrangements to ship his theatrical wardrobe through the blockade to a port in the South on one of Martin’s vessels named the Marie Victoria. But Booth’s business arrangements with Martin went beyond the shipping of his wardrobe. Booth needed help with his plan to carry the captured president through Charles County and across the Potomac River to Virginia. Where Booth came up with the idea to travel to Montreal and meet with Martin is unclear, but such a meeting must have been known at some point by the leadership in Richmond.
Martin appeared to be well connected with the Confederate underground in southern Maryland. He knew which individuals were capable of assisting Booth and which ones were most trustworthy. The Confederate mail line that began in Richmond and ended in Montreal passed through the heart of southern Maryland and involved some of the Confederacy’s best agents. In order to help Booth, Martin prepared a letter of introduction to two of Charles County’s more prominent Southern sympathizers, Dr. Samuel Mudd and Dr. William Queen.8
After providing Booth with this letter of introduction, Martin may also have given Booth the partial means to finance his recruitment efforts. When Booth returned to Washington from Montreal, he carried not only Martin’s letter, but also a draft for $1,500 that he deposited in Jay Cooke’s bank.9 While the source of Booth’s funds can not be positively established, Patrick Martin seems to be a reasonable source. Booth’s income from acting was drying up, and his losses in the oil fields had been substantial. When the Confederate agents set up operations in Canada in May of 1864 they received a million dollars in gold from Confederate Secret Service funds to finance their operations against the United States. Some of this money may have been given to Booth while in Montreal to help underwrite his scheme to capture Lincoln. The fact that Booth returned from Canada and made a deposit in Cooke’s bank within a week suggests that Martin had provided the funds. The amount of money was not trivial. In today’s market, $1,500 is the equivalent of approximately $16,000 in current dollars. Booth disbursed all of this money between January 7 and March 16, the most active period of his recruitment activities, which further supports the notion that the funds were to support his capture plan.10
It is at the point of Booth’s return from Montreal that the sequence of his recruitment furnishes a clue to the importance of Samuel Mudd to his overall operation. Samuel Mudd was just the sort of ally that Booth would need to carry out his plot. The location of Mudd’s house was ideally situated along the escape route. If Booth were to avoid the soldiers occupying the area, he would have to travel at night, and he would need to know where the soldiers were located. Even riding hard all night from Washington he would not be able to get beyond the area where Mudd lived before daylight.11 He would need a place to stay until nightfall. The fact that Mudd was a physician allowed him to move about the county without being harassed by the military. His contacts with other agents would allow him to gather information about the military in the area. All of these things would prove crucial to Booth in his plan to capture Lincoln and carry him south.
Martin’s choice of William Queen and Samuel Mudd suggests Martin knew these two men not as friends, but as colleagues in clandestine operations. How else would Martin have known these two if not through the Confederate underground network? The fact that Martin’s letter carried weight with these two men suggests their importance to Confederate operations in Charles County. As loyal Confederate operatives they could be trusted to help Booth in laying out his escape plan.
Armed with Martin’s letter, Booth boarded the stagecoach in Washington for Charles County on Friday morning, November 11. Booth spent Friday evening at the Bryantown tavern where he was later met by Joseph Queen, a son of Dr. William Queen, and taken back to the elder Queen’s house on Saturday.12 The fact that Joseph
Queen met Booth in Bryantown and brought him back to Dr. Queen’s house suggests that prior arrangements had been made anticipating Booth’s arrival.
The Queens lived approximately six miles south of Bryantown along the eastern edge of the Zekiah Swamp. On Sunday, Booth, Dr. Queen, and Queen’s son-in-law John Thompson attended services at St. Mary’s Catholic Church a few miles south of Bryantown. Also attending St. Mary’s services that morning was Samuel Mudd.
Mudd’s presence at St. Mary’s Church on this particular Sunday supports the notion that he had come by appointment specifically to meet Booth. The Mudd family normally attended St. Peter’s Church located two miles west of the Mudd farm and seven miles to the northwest of St. Mary’s Church. The two churches lay in separate parishes. St. Peter’s Church held mass every Sunday and had its own priest in residence, Father Peter B. Lenaghan.13 Father Lenaghan married the Mudds, and their four children had been baptized at St. Peter’s.14 It seems more than coincidental that when Booth appeared at St. Mary’s Church for the first time, Dr. Mudd was also present. It would prove to be a near fatal visit for Mudd.
Booth’s presence at St. Mary’s Church on Sunday morning is confirmed by several sources, the most important of which is Mudd himself. In a statement prepared prior to his arrest, Mudd wrote, “I was introduced to him [Booth] by Mr. J.C. Thompson, a son-in-law of William Queen, in November or December last.”15 Thompson was more specific in his statement, “On Sunday morning, this man Booth, Dr. Queen, and myself went to church in Bryantown, and I introduced Booth to Dr. Mudd.” Thompson did not stop at this point, however. In answer to a second question as to whether he had ever seen Booth again Thompson answered, “I think some time, if my memory serves me, in December he came down there [Charles County] a second time to Dr. Queen’s house.” More on this second visit shortly.
Blood on the Moon Page 11
