Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser., 1869-01-15

village OF bryantOWn, dld the DOct0r learn
for the 6rst time the fact of the Presidents
assassination: Whether he heard at the same
time that Booth was suspected, or whether
he recognized Booth in the patient
having seen him but once before, on the oc-
casion Of Booths visit to lower Maryland, the
previous fall, for the ostensble purpose Of
buying land-are points left iu doubt Ivy the
published testimony; nor are they material
to the question Of the Doctors guilt or inno-
cence. The testimony makes it perfectly
clear that on the following Sunday morning
DR.. Samuel Mudd related to kinsman and
well-known loyalist, Dr.. George Mudd, the
particulars Of the mysterious visit he had re-
ceived, various little suspicious circumstances
he had noticed, are requested that the infor-
nation should be given to the military autho-
rites. 1t was promptly given. Interviews
followed between DR.. Samuel Mudd anil the
military officers and the detectives engaged in
the pursuit of the murderers, ending finally
with the Doctors arrest.
All the ether evidence in regard to DR..
Samuel Mudd is either contradictory or clear
ly in his favor The detectives who testify
to the Doctors reticence and apparent unwil-
lingness to give information, are contradlcted
by DIR. George Muld, who first communicat-
ed to the authorities the information he had
received, and conducted the detectives to DR..
Samuel Mudd's house Even if the fact be
as testified to by these detective officers, it is
not criminal in itself nor evidence of crime,
and is sufficiently accounted for by the ner-
vous agitation of a man placed in novel
position, in time of unparalleled excitement,
and ignorant how far even an act of hunnani-
ty, unconsciously rendered to the Presidents
murderer, might expose him, if not to pun
ishment, at least to suspicion and odium.-
The result which has actually followed-his
own subsequent arrest, trial, conviction and
present mprisonment-show that such ap-
prehensons on the Doctors part would not
have been unreasonable.
The outside evidence sought to be intro
duced of the Doctors alleged dsloyalty is
contradicted upon every point-that of the
negro girl, Mary Simms, i'll regard to his har-
boring rebel soldiers, by the testimony of the
very persons represented to have been so bar
bored, and of a number of others, white and
black. The disloyal language testified to by
Daniel J. Thomas is disproved by John f..
Downing, at whose house and in whose pre-
sence it was said to have been used. Many
respectable witnesses testify that neither Dan
iel Thomas nor the girl, Mary Simms, are to
be believed upon oath, and concur in repre-
senting DR.. Samuel Mudd as quiet, peacea-
BILE, law-abiding citizen, who, whatever his
private opinions and sympathies might have
been, never, during the entire war, did aught
inconsistent with his duty and allegiance to
the government under which he lived.
The testimony Of Louis j. Weiohman, sup
posed to be corroborated, incidentally and
partially, by that of Marcus Norton and w.
A. Evans, by which it was sought to be prov
ed that DR.. Mudd had interviews with Booth
and the other conspirators at the National
Hotel, in Washington city, is contradicted by
the score of respectable witnesses who &C.
count for every day, and hour almost, of DR..
Mudd's time during the months of January,
February and March preceding the assassina-
ton. down to the 18th of April, inclusive,
and who prove the absolute impossibility OF
any such interviews having taken place. The
solitary previous occasion which DR.. Mudd
seems ever to have met Booth, until the day
after the assassination, when be came to bis
house with broken ankle, was in the pre-
ceding autumn, when Booth came to Charles
county ostensibly, perhaps really, for the pur-
pose of buying land, and when he did actual
ly buy horse from one of DR.. Mudd's neigh
bors. At that time there is not shadow OF
reason to believe that Booth himself contem-
plated the crime Of which he was subsequently
guilty, much less that he was engaged in ma
turing its details or seeking for coadjutors.-
That Booth during the fall and winter of
1864. professed to be interested in buying
land in lower Maryland with the proceeds ol
certain supposed successful speculations in
oil, and that such was assigned by him as the
motive for bis visits to Charles and Prince
Georges counties, is susceptible of proof by
all who, during that period, were conversan'
with him. s.f.. .s..-t.-., "a
Altogether, in view of all the testimony in
this case, in the opinion Of your memoriaists,
it cannot but be considered that DR.. Mudd is
now suffering crimina! punishment for an act
of ordinary and professional humanity, which
it would have been disgraceful to him, as a
physician and man, not to have performed.