Leave Only Footprints by Conor Knighton

Author:Conor Knighton [Knighton, Conor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2020-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

14

FORGIVENESS

(Dry Tortugas, Petrified Forest)

“The setting of a leg is no crime that calls for forgiveness.”

On December 22, 1865, Sarah Frances Mudd wrote those words in a letter addressed to His Excellency, Andrew Johnson, President of The United States.

“I hesitate to address you,” she began, “but love is stronger than fear, timidity must yield. I must petition for him who is very, very dear to me.”

Sarah was writing to request a pardon for her dear husband, Dr. Samuel Mudd. A few months earlier, Dr. Mudd had been sentenced to life in prison and sent to a cell on a remote island in the Gulf of Mexico. He had been convicted of “conspiracy to murder,” but he had not fired a shot. There was no concrete proof of his involvement in a murder plot. What Mudd had done, beyond the shadow of a doubt, was set the leg of a man who had broken his left fibula. His name was John Wilkes Booth.

At around 4 A.M. on April 15, 1865, Booth arrived limping at the Mudd residence. A few hours earlier, when he had leapt from the balcony of Ford’s Theatre after shooting President Abraham Lincoln, Booth had broken his leg on the stage. As Mudd would later argue, how could he possibly refuse to attend to an injured man?

The government argued Booth was not just some random patient in need. The two men had met before—a few different times—and therefore Mudd must have been part of the conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln. After initially lying to investigators, Mudd eventually admitted that yes, “on reflection,” he had indeed met Booth before, but he didn’t recognize him that night.

The military commission claimed that Mudd not only knew Booth, he knew of and supported his plans. The commission sentenced Mudd to life in what was then America’s largest military prison. Today it’s one of our smallest national parks.

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