In the early hours after Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865, a stranger showed up at a rural Maryland doctor's door with a broken leg. The doctor set it, asked few questions, and sent the man on his way. That one house call put Samuel Mudd on trial for his life.
One Vote From the Gallows
The stranger at Mudd's door was John Wilkes Booth, fleeing after shooting President Lincoln the night before. A military commission later convicted Mudd of aiding Booth's escape, and he escaped a death sentence by a single vote, receiving life imprisonment instead. He arrived at Fort Jefferson, the remote island fort in the Dry Tortugas, in July 1865, one of a small group of men convicted in the assassination conspiracy sent to serve their sentences as far from the mainland as the government could put them.
His cell sat on the fort's second tier, above the sallyport. He and the other prisoners carved small trenches into the floor to divert rainwater and passed time watching stars through the fort's gun loopholes. At one point he attempted to escape, was caught, and spent time confined to the fort's dungeon before being returned to his regular cell.
- Charge AIDING BOOTH AFTER LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION
- Verdict LIFE SENTENCE, ESCAPED DEATH BY ONE VOTE
- Arrived FORT JEFFERSON, JULY 1865
- Cell 2ND TIER, ABOVE THE SALLYPORT
Tour Fort Jefferson's Prison Cells
Self-guided tours pass directly by the cell where Mudd served his sentence.
Open the Trip PlannerThe Yellow Fever Doctor
In 1867, yellow fever tore through Fort Jefferson. The outbreak killed the post's chief surgeon and four nurses, leaving the garrison and its prisoners without enough trained medical staff to treat the sick. Mudd, still four years into his sentence, began treating patients himself, working through a crisis that had already killed the people whose job that technically was.
Survivors credited him with helping hold up morale at the fort during a period when panic would have been the easier response.
Not long after the epidemic passed, President Andrew Johnson pardoned Mudd, in 1869, and he returned to his Maryland farm, where he spent the rest of his life.
- Year 1867
- Deaths among staff CHIEF SURGEON + 4 NURSES
- Mudd's role TREATED PATIENTS, CREDITED WITH SUSTAINING MORALE
- Pardoned 1869, BY PRESIDENT ANDREW JOHNSON
Trial, sentence, and arrival date checked against the National Park Service's official Dr. Samuel Mudd biography pages for Dry Tortugas National Park and the NPS People collection. Cell location, the 1867 yellow fever epidemic, staff deaths, Mudd's medical role, and his 1869 pardon checked against NPS's official Dr. Mudd's Cell place page.
He arrived at Fort Jefferson because of one house call he made without asking many questions. He left it, four years later, because of the hundreds of house calls he made once the fever hit and there weren't enough doctors left standing to make them. Both versions of that story are true at the same time, which is most of what makes it worth telling.