In his affidavit protesting Dutton’s first allegation–about knowing Booth before the assassination–Mudd unwittingly let slip another damaging piece of information. In describing the Washington meeting referred to by Dutton, Mudd wrote:

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We [Mudd and Booth] started down one street, and then up another, and had not gone far when we met Surratt and Wiechmann. Introductions took place and we turned back in the direction of the hotel….After arriving in the room, I took the first opportunity presented to apologize to Surratt for having introduced him to Booth–a man I knew so little concerning. This conversation took place in the passage in front of the room [hallway] and was not over three minutes in duration….Surratt and myself returned and resumed our former seats (after taking drinks ordered) around a center table, which stood midway the room and distant seven or eight feet from Booth and Wiechmann; Booth remarked that he had been down to the country a few days before, and said that he had not yet recovered from the fatigue. Afterward he said he had been down in Charles County, and had made me an offer to purchase of my land, which I confirmed by an affirmative answer; and he further remarked that on his way up [to Washington] he lost his way and rode several miles off the track.¹²

In his revealing statement, Mudd confirmed a second visit to Charles County by Booth just prior to the December 23 meeting at the National Hotel–a trip that, by Mudd’s own admission, included a visit to his property. This was the important other meeting.

Independent evidence that Booth visited Charles County in December can be found in the trial testimony of John C. Thompson. Thompson was the man who had originally introduced Booth to Mudd in November 1864 at St. Mary’s Church, as Mudd had already acknowledged in his statement given prior to his arrest. Thompson was the son-in-law of Dr. William Queen, a prominent Confederate operative who Booth also visited during his November trip to Charles County. During questioning by one of Mudd’s attorneys, Thompson was asked if he had seen Booth again after the meeting where he had introduced Booth to Mudd in November. Thompson answered: I think some time, if my memory serves me, in December, he came down a second time to Dr. Queen’s house….I think it was about the middle of December following after his first visit there.¹³

It is clear from both Mudd’s own statement in his affidavit of August 28, 1865, and Thompson’s testimony during the trial that Booth visited the Bryantown area in Charles County a second time, in mid-December 1864. And it is in his own affidavit that Mudd admits to meeting with Booth during this second visit.

While Mudd claimed that Booth stayed overnight at his house and purchased a horse from his neighbor, George Gardiner, during the November meeting, several pieces of evidence show that those incidents occurred during Booth’s December visit, not in November. The first piece of evidence is found in a letter Booth wrote to J. Dominick Burch, who lived in Bryantown and worked at the Bryantown Tavern. Written from Washington, D.C., the letter is dated Monday, November 14, 1864, the day Mudd claims he accompanied Booth to Gardiner’s farm, where Booth supposedly purchased a one-eyed horse.¹⁴ The letter clearly places Booth in Washington on November 14, and makes it clear that Booth traveled by stagecoach and not by horse.

In his letter, Booth refers to an object he left on the stage last Friday (November 11). Booth implies from his description that the object was a gun, which he took from my carpetbag. Its [sic] not worth more than $15, but I will give him $20 rather than lose it, as it has saved my life two or three times.¹⁵

The second piece of evidence refuting Mudd’s statement concerning the November purchase of a horse is a memorandum prepared for use at the military trial by George Washington Bunker. Bunker was a clerk at the National Hotel, where Booth stayed when in Washington. Bunker prepared an abstract of the hotel ledger for the trial prosecutors in the form of a memorandum, in which he listed Booth’s comings and goings from the hotel during late 1864 and 1865.¹⁶ Bunker noted that Booth had checked out of the National Hotel on Friday, November 11, 1864, and had returned on Monday, November 14. In December, Bunker’s memorandum shows that Booth checked out of the National Hotel on Saturday, the 17th, and did not check back in until Thursday, the 22nd, the day before he met in his hotel room with Mudd, Surratt, and Weichmann. It was during that period, December 17-22, that Booth returned to Charles County and met with Mudd.¹⁷ And it was at that time that Booth stayed the night at the Mudd home and purchased the horse from Mudd’s neighbor, George Gardiner.

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