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village of Bryan town, did the Doctor learn for ttie first time tlie fact of the President's assassination. Whether be heard at the same time that Booth was suspected, or whethcT he recognized Booth in the patient—never having seen him but once before, on the occasion of Booth’s visit to lower Maryland, the previous fa)!, for the ostensible purpose of buying land—are points left iu doubt by the published testimony; nor are they material to the question of tho Doctor’s guilt or inno-11 cence. Tho testimony makes it perfectly s clear that on the following (Sunday) morning -1 Dr. Samuel Mudd related to a kinsman anil . well-known loyalist, Dr. George Mudd, the j particulars of the mysterious visit he had received, various little suspicious circumstances j ho had noticed, are requested that the information should be given to the military autho-* rities. It was promptly given. Interviews• followed between Dr. Samuel Mudd an 1 the 3 military officers and the detectives engaged in i the pursuit of the murderers, ending fiually -! with the Doctor’s arrest.t! All the ..ther evidence in regard to Dr. Samuel Mudd is either contradictory or clearly in his favor. The detectives who testify to the Debtor's reticence and afferent unwillingness to give information, are contradicted by Dr. George Mudd, who first communicated to the authorities the information he irad received, and conducted the detectives to Dr. Samuel Mudd’s house. Even if the fact beA memorial has been put in circulation petitioning the President for the release of Edmund Spangler, Dr. Samnel A. Mudd and Samnel Arnold, prisoners at the Dry Tortu-gas, under sentence of a military commission, for alleged complicity with the murder of the late President Lincoln. The Baltimore Sun, which publishes the whole memorial, says:— “It is impossible to read the statement given in this memorial of the evidence adduced for and against these prisoner^ upon their trial without profound astonishment that any tribunal, even a military one, could have convicted and sentenced men to a long and painful imprisonment, upon testimony which, now that the popular passions aroused by the murder of the late President, have subsided, no rational man would consider sufficient to ask their trials upon, much less their conviction.“Upon a review of the facts as stated iu the memorial the question is involuntarily suggested whether the court which convicted the prisoners upon such testimony could have erred through ignorance, or whether they yielded the convictions of their own judgments from timidity, and without regard to the rules of law and evidence, to an infuriate and oudiscrimiuating demand for retribution. However that may be, and making all allowances for the influence of the passions of the hour in incapacitating even ordinarily hoDest and well-intentioned minds from a fair administration of justice, it would seem undeniable that, in the present calm temper of the public mind, it would be impossible to convict the prisoners before any tribunal upon the evidence which is recited, and that it would be an act, of justice as well as of humanity to relieve them from the prolongation of a punishment, no part of which was ever warranted by the testimony adduced upon tbeir trial.”We extract only that portion of the memorial relating to Dr. Mndd’s case:The oase of Dr. Samuel Mudd appeals e-qually strong to your Excellency’s consideration. The whole connection of this unfortunate gentleman with Booth, for with his crime he had none, as shown by the evidence, is this: Early on Saturday moroiDg, the day following the assassination, two strangers, as the Doctor supposed them both to be, called at the Doctor’s house, in Charles county, Md., distant Dearly thirty miles from Washington city. One of them was suffering from a fractured ankle, and needing surgical assistance. This assistance the Doctor rendered as a matter of professional duty, not less than an act of common humanity. Not until after the patient and his companion had departed— late in the afternoon of the same day—at theas testified to by these detective officers, it is not criminal in itself nor evidence of crime,and is sufficiently accounted for by the nervous agitation of a man placed in a novel position, iD a time of unparalleled excitement, and ignorant how far even an act of humanity, unconsciously rendered to the President’s murderer, might expose him, if not to punishment, at least to suspicion aDd odium.— The result which has actually followed—his own subsequent arrest, trial, conviction and present imprisonment—show that such apprehensions on the Doctor’s part would not have been unreasonable.The outside evidence sought to be introduced of the Doctor’s alleged disloyalty is contradicted upon every point—that of the negro girl, Mary Simms, iu regard to his harboring rebel soldiers, by the testimony of the very persons represented to have been so harbored, and of a number of others, white and black. The disloyal language testified to by Daniel J. Thomas is disproved by John H. Downing, at whose house and in whose presence it was said to have been used. Many respectable witnesses testify that neither Daniel Thomas nor the girl, Mary Simms, are to be believed upon oath, and concur in representing Dr. Samuel Mudd as a quiet, peaceable, law-abiding citizen, who, whatever his private opinions and sympathies might have been, never, during the eDtire war, did aught inconsistent with his duty and allegiance to the government under which be lived.The testimony of Louis J. WeiohmaD, supposed to be corroborated, incidentally aDd partially, by that of Marcus Norton and W. A. Evans, by which it was sought to be proved 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 ac-couut for every day, and hour almost, of Dr. Mudd’s time during the months of January, February and March preceding the assassination, down to the 14th of April, inclusive, and who prove the absolute impossibility of any such interviews having taken place. The ■olitary previod^-ocStsion which Dr. Mudd seems ever to have met Booth, until the day after the assassination, when he came to his house with a broken ankle, was in the preceding autumn, wheD Booth came to Charles coUDty ostensibly, perhaps really, for the purpose of buyiug land, and when he did actually buy a horse from one of Dr. Mudd’s neighbors. At that time there is not a shadow of reason to believe that Booth himself contemplated the crime of which he was subsequently guilty, much less that he was engaged in maturing its details or seeking for coadjutors.— That Booth, during the fall and wioter of 1864, professed to be interested in buying laud iD lower Maryland with the proceeds of certain supposed successful speculations in oil, aud that sack was assigned by him as the motive for his visits to Charles and Prfnce George’s counties, is susceptible of proof by all who, during that period, were conversant with him.Altogether, in view of ail the testimony in this case, iD the opinion of your memorialists, it canDot but be considered that Dr. Mudd is dow suffering criminal punishment for ar of ordinary and professional humanity, which it would have been disgraceful to him, as a physician and a man, not to have performedOBITUARY.Died, in this village, on Saturday, the 9th inst., Mrs. JOSEPHINE M. A. R. BUTTON, beloved wife of Joh.n S. Button, Esq., and daughter of William H. Welch, Esq., in the 21st year of her age.It is the belief of the writer that the subject of this tribute endeavored to live up to the standard of loving God with all her heart and her neighbor as herself, and trusted in the merits of the Savior for salvation. She excelled as a devoted and faithful wife, a dutiful and affectionate daughter, a kind and loving sister, and a true and constant friend. She had been married about ten months, and, with every human prospect of earthly happiness that the young wife and mother could have, was expecting to more into the house that loving care bad provided with every comfort for her home, but He, who doeth all things well and who gave his only Son, our Redeemer, to die for all mankind, has removed her and her infant child to a Heavenly Horae, the Father’s House of many mansions—a House not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens—there to await, with her angel babe and all the redeemed who have gone before her, the coming of her family and those who loved her.A Feiend.[Annapolis and Upper Marlborough papers please copy.]DIED,In this village, on the 31st of December, 1868, MARY TUBMAN, infant daughter of John S. and Josephine M. A. R. Button.Dr. HOFFAR, Dentist,■VTTILL be in Port Tobacco or neighborhood YV f°r about a week, should any wish his professional services they will have an opportunity of availing themselves of it. He will be at Norris’ Hotel on Monday, the 18th inst.Jan 15,1869—It* __Attention! MOTUTTED VOLUNTEEBS.Attend a Meeting of the Company, at Port Tobacco, on SA-TURf
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Port Tobacco Times And Charles County Advertiser
Port Tobacco, Maryland, US
Fri, Jan 15, 1869
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Jennifer M.
USA 05 Jul 2024
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