Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. press release, July 1, 1997

NEWS FROM Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. Second Congressional District of Maryland 1407 York Road, Suite 304 Lutherville, Maryland 2 1 093 3 1 5 Cannon House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Richard Cross July 1, 1997 202-225-3061 EHRLICH PUSHES BILL TO CLEAR DOCTOR ACCUSED IN LINCOLN CONSPIRACY Congressman Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. (R-2nd., MD) is supporting legislation to exonerate Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, the doctor who treated John Wilkes Booth’s injuries after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, and was later accused and convicted of being a conspirator in the crime. H. R. 1885, co-sponsored by Ehrlich and fellow Marylander Steny Hoyer (D-5th., MD), would direct the Secretary of the Army to set aside Dr. Mudd’s conviction by a military commission in 1865 for aiding, abetting, and assisting the Lincoln conspirators. On the morning of April 15, 1865, John Wilkes Booth visited Dr. Mudd’s farm in Charles County, Maryland. Dr. Mudd, a confederate sympathizer who knew Booth, treated Booth’s leg, which he broke when he leapt from the President’s box at Ford’s Theatre. Moreover, another conspirator — Lewis Paine, who tried to kill Secretary of State William Seward — escaped from the scene of the crime using a horse which Booth had purchased from one of Dr. Mudd’s neighbors. Though there was no evidence that Dr. Mudd played any role in the conspiracy, or even knew Booth had just assassinated Lincoln, he was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment. President Andrew Johnson pardoned Dr. Mudd in 1869. Since his death in 1883, Dr. Mudd’s