Book Description

All of the historical accounts of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd's life focus on his conviction as one of the eight persons tried for conspiracy in the 1865 assassination of president Abraham Lincoln. But Dr. Mudd was also a farmer who relied on slave labor to plant and harvest his tobacco crops. This book is the story of the lives of those men and women. Dr. and Mrs. Mudd acquired at least nine slaves between 1859 and 1864. Their first five slaves were documented in the 1860 Federal Slave Census. They were a 26-year-old man, a 19-year-old girl, a 10-year-old boy, an 8-year-old girl, and a 6-year-old girl. The 26-year-old man was Elzee Eglent. The 19-year-old woman was his sister, Mary Simms. The 14-year-old boy was their brother, Milo Simms. The two little girls were called sisters, but their different last names suggest they were not. We do know they were orphans. The 8-year-old girl was Lettie Hall. The 6-year-old girl was Louisa Cristie. Four additional slaves were acquired between 1860 and 1864. They were Rachel Spencer, Richard Washington, Melvina Washington, and Frank Washington. Rachel Spencer probably came from the plantation of Henry Lowe Mudd where her mother Lucy Spencer, her sister Maria Spencer, and her brothers Baptist Spencer and Joseph Spencer were slaves. Maria Spencer was married to William Hurbert, a slave on Susanna Mudd's plantation in nearby Prince George's County. Richard Washington, Melvina Washington, and Frank Washington came from the Dyer plantation. After the Civil War started, some of Dr. Mudd's slaves ran away to Washington, D.C. where slavery was abolished in 1862., or joined the Union Army which began enlisting former slaves in 1863. Others left the farm after the State of Maryland abolished slavery in November 1864. Three of Dr. Mudd's slaves remained on the farm after emancipation and were still there at the time of the 1870 Federal census. Not much is known about the slaves' lives before Dr. Mudd became involved in the Lincoln assassination. Slave owners didn't normally keep records of slaves' births, marriages, deaths, or other events in their lives. Most of what we know about Dr. Mudd's slaves comes from testimony by and about them at the Lincoln conspiracy trial, as reported in this book. After the trial, the lives of most of Dr. Mudd's former slaves faded once again from public view. However, research for this book uncovered interesting information about some of their post-slavery lives, and is reported in this book. This includes former slave Lettie Hall Dade's account of John Wilkes visit to the Mudd farm immediately following the assassination.