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Herr Snackmeier's avatar

Dr. Mudd's family and supporters all these years later still contend that the guilty as hell Doctor was actually innocent. The pardoning received from President Andrew Johnson was in response to the perceived cruelty of his sentence of exile to the dry tortugas. And so they have bothered every president since with the the gobblygook that he was just a kind country doctor helping out a man with a broken leg who showed up at his Maryland homestead in the hours after president had been murdered.

The idea of a day for Dr. Mudd is to somehow keep the the pardon of Innocence claim alive. The claim is an adjunct of the execrable lost cause narrative.

His sentence might have been cruel, and perhaps out of proportion with his participation in the conspiracy to murder the president, vice president and Secretary of State, but mudd lies in the hours after the assassination allowed the assassin and his co-conspirators to outrun, albeit briefly, military justice.

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln stands alone in American history as an act of political murder in which there was indeed a significant highly coordinated conspiracy. John Wilkes Booth did shoot Abraham Lincoln in the head, but did so while he believed his co-conspirators were decapitating the government with similar attacks on vice Johnson and secretary Seward. (Seward and his son were injured but lived; the conspirator assigned to Johnson lost his nerve and didn't attack.)

One of the flavors of phony revisionist theory is that it raises questions, which is good, but creates ignorance at the same time, which is bad. They claim a day for Dr. Mudd and put it on calendars, people ask what it's about. Their curiosity is a good thing. But the information that they may find in this awful day and age may be the neoconfederate propaganda. Dr. Mudd is somehow an innocent lamb in the conspiracy to murder the leaders of the United States of America in 1865.

Goonemeritus's avatar

Mo and Willy are looking for sheep, I for one hope they find some.

Littorally Speaking's avatar

๐˜›๐˜ฉ๐˜ฆ ๐˜Š๐˜ฉ๐˜ณ๐˜ช๐˜ด๐˜ต๐˜ฎ๐˜ข๐˜ด ๐˜›๐˜ฉ๐˜ข๐˜ต ๐˜ˆ๐˜ญ๐˜ฎ๐˜ฐ๐˜ด๐˜ต ๐˜ž๐˜ข๐˜ด๐˜ฏ'๐˜ต ๐˜‰๐˜ถ๐˜ต ๐˜›๐˜ฉ๐˜ฆ๐˜ฏ ๐˜ž๐˜ข๐˜ด

https://youtu.be/mug1B1hBt5k?si=Zx7VXTUuIYOmqGbk

Opalescent Riddles's avatar

I came here (for the article of course but also too) specifically to see if anyone had posted this.

tehbaddr's avatar

It had to be done, I can't have been the only one. I suspect Bobothonic did it also, too!

NH is for ๐Ÿฆก๐Ÿ„๐Ÿ's avatar

Obligatory:

โ€œHARCOURT FENTON MUDD!!!โ€

biff murphy's avatar

Dr. Samuel Mudd claimed not to recognize the two men who appeared at his home the morning of April 15, 1865.

Just six hours after shooting President Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth and David Herold arrived at the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd at 4:00 a.m. on April 15, 1865. Mudd used his medical kit to treat Boothโ€™s broken leg and allowed the two men to sleep in his home.

He later told investigators that he did not recognize Booth, although they had met numerous times before. The items below became evidence against Mudd on charges that he was involved in the conspiracy to assassinate the President.

The military tribunal convicted Mudd, sentencing him to life in prison at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, an island 70 miles off the Florida coast. In 1869, President Andrew Johnson pardoned Mudd, in part because of his efforts to halt the spread of an outbreak of deadly yellow fever at the prison.

Wookiee Monster's avatar

Harcourt Fenton Mudd deserves his own day!

Ted Cruz's Beard's avatar

Mudd was imprisoned at Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas. He treated prisoners and others in the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1867, earning a pardon from President Jackson for this service in 1869.

Fort Jefferson still stands, in all itโ€™s sublime beauty, 60 miles W of Key West.

Grindstone, Sister FoulMouth's avatar

If I'm not mistaken, Dr. Mudd was pardoned after services rendered at the fort on the Dry Tortugas after a virulent yellow fever outbreak.

Bupkus231's avatar

I lived in Southern Maryland for 22 years, pretty near by the Samuel Mudd House ( which has been preserved as a historical site ), yet I never was even tempted to visit - I only know where it was because I passed the entrance to the site when I went to and fro from the people with whom I kenneled my dog, Bonnie ( while she was still alive ) when I had to travel for work.

Carstonio's avatar

The re-enactors at the house tell visitors a whitewashed version of Muddโ€™s history.

Daniel O'Riordan's avatar

If the Chumps had lived back then, Don, Jr. would have made a joke about going on Halloween as John Wilkes Boothe, because Donald Trump is a rapist and a pedophile.

Menotsure's avatar

This day is celebrated by some, not for his treatment of John Wilkes Booth, but because after being sent to the Federal prison housed at Ft. Jefferson, in the Dry Tortugas near Key West, he did heroic work saving lives during a yellow fever outbreak there in what was considered a harsh prison on an island with only rain water as a source of fresh water.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/gps-cs-s/AG0ilSwpXVMKrd7GL0V69Hw_3v6IUkcfZCTWAsmPe0a6HXsIWHXqUweSNA3NXNAwlH5q8upqmfPnZIiVCYva7YHz_UrjRafpAH_wHx1MWE5lUyrJruXo7sbgTVfjpQrLNpkbVMhMnXnQ=s2560-w2560-h1360-rw

Larry Schmitt's avatar

Know who else got an A+++++? Ralphie, on his What I Want for Christmas theme. That was also a fantasy.

Antifa Commander's avatar

Mudd Day, and no honors to Harcourt Fenton Mudd? Nonsense!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S9YPvvo4Sqw

Stephen St John's avatar

Or Roger Mudd. Or Harvey Mudd.

biff murphy's avatar

I remember Major Mudd!

local Boston teevee celebrity

NH is for ๐Ÿฆก๐Ÿ„๐Ÿ's avatar

And the first online game I became addicted to.

Khavrinen's avatar

I was going to go with this clip, because I always hear his name the way Stella says it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s0N8Mviig0

Sister Artemis's avatar

Precisely what I was thinking!