When Booth came to Mudd’s house in the early morning of April 15, 1865, seeking medical aid, it was the fourth time that the two men had met, and none of the four meetings had been accidental. In his three previous meetings with Booth, Mudd had played a pivotal role in Booth’s scheme to assemble an action team⁸ to capture President Lincoln and carry him to Richmond as a prisoner of the Confederacy. Booth not only was an overnight guest at Mudd’s house during one of the three meetings but also had sent provisions to Mudd’s house for use during the planned kidnapping of the president.⁹

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Mudd’s statement that Booth spent the night at his house after their introduction in November 1864 and that he purchased a horse the next morning is not true. Those events did not occur in November as Mudd claimed, but in December. The reason Mudd would lie about such occurrences was self-preservation. He hoped to keep secret the number of times he had associated with Booth.

During Mudd’s trial, evidence was introduced by the prosecution showing that Mudd and Booth had indeed met prior to April 15, 1865. Louis Weichmann, the government’s key witness, told of an earlier meeting involving Mudd and Booth in Washington, D.C., at which Weichmann was present. Weichmann testified that while he and John Surratt, Jr., were walking along Seventh Street toward Pennsylvania Avenue, they met Booth and Mudd coming from the opposite direction.¹⁰ After introductions, the four men retired to Booth’s room at the National Hotel, a short distance away. Weichmann testified that during the meeting Mudd and Booth stepped into the hall and engaged in a subdued conversation that Weichmann could hear but could not discern the actual words. The two men were subsequently joined by Surratt before all three men returned to the room where Weichmann was sitting. Booth, Surratt, and Mudd sat around a table in the center of the room while Booth drew something on the back of an envelope–Weichmann said he thought it resembled a map. Whatever was discussed among the three men, one thing is certain: As a result of Mudd’s introduction of Surratt to Booth, Surratt agreed to join Booth in his plot to capture Lincoln.

Although Mudd’s defense attorney, Maj. Gen. Thomas Ewing, denied that the meeting had taken place, Mudd himself acknowledged that the meeting had taken place in an affidavit he prepared in August 1865 while in prison at Fort Jefferson, in the Florida Keys. It was in his affidavit that Mudd inadvertently let slip that yet another meeting involving Booth and himself had occurred in mid-December, immediately before the meeting in Washington.

After his conviction Mudd and co-conspirators Michael O’Laughlen, Samuel Arnold, and Edman Spangler were transported to Fort Jefferson, where the men were scheduled to serve out their prison sentences. During the trip they were placed under a military guard commanded by Captain George W. Dutton. Captain Dutton later claimed that during the journey Mudd had confessed that he knew Booth when he came to his house with Herold on the morning after the assassination of the President. The captain said that Mudd also confessed that he was with Booth at the National Hotel on the day referred to by Weichmann in his testimony; and that he came to Washington on that occasion to meet Booth by appointment who wished to be introduced to John Surratt.¹¹

Neither of those admissions were revelations to the government, which suspected the first and had proved the second. The trial was over. Mudd had been convicted and was now serving a life sentence in the isolation of Fort Jefferson. The government had lost interest in Mudd, but Mudd had not lost interest in trying to gain his release through the federal judicial system.

Word of Dutton’s statement reached Mudd in prison, and Mudd knew that he had to respond to Dutton’s charges if he was ever to regain his freedom. On August 28, 1865, Mudd prepared an affidavit in which he denied telling Dutton that he knew it was Booth who arrived at his house on April 15, only hours after Lincoln was shot. His denial was important; for if Mudd had allowed Dutton’s accusation to stand it would have meant that the doctor had indeed knowingly aided and abetted the murderer of President Lincoln. But while denying any knowledge of Booth, Mudd inadvertently admitted for the first time to the meeting at the National Hotel with Booth, Surratt, and Weichmann on December 23, 1864, thus confirming the government’s charge made during the trial.

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