Booth also was seen in the Bryantown area in mid-December by a third person, who was called as a government witness during the trial. John F. Hardy, who lived midway between Bryantown and the Mudd farm, testified to seeing Booth at St. Mary’s Church near Bryantown on two separate occasions, the first in November, the second about a month after but before Christmas. Hardy went on to testify: On Monday evening, I rode to Bryantown to see if I could get my horse shod; and I met Mr. Booth…a little above Bryantown riding by himself. He was riding a horse in the road leading straight to Horse Head, or he could not come to this point, to Washington, on the same road.¹⁸

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in American History magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

This testimony places Booth in Bryantown on Monday eveningduring his second visit in December. Evidence that Booth purchased the one-eyed horse from George Gardiner during this second visit is gleaned from testimony of Thomas Gardiner. He testified that Booth bought a horse from his uncle on a Monday just as Mudd had claimed, and continued, Booth requested my Uncle to send the horse to Bryantown the next morning [Tuesday]; and I took the horse myself the next morning to Bryantown. If Booth had purchased the horse on Monday and took delivery on Tuesday, it is clear that the purchase could not have happened in November, since Booth’s letter to Burch and Bunker’s memo both place him in Washington on Monday, November 14. Booth simply could not have been in two places at the same time.

Mudd probably lied about Booth’s overnight stay at his house in November and about purchasing a horse the next day to cover up his second Charles County meeting with Booth. Clues to the doctor’s reasons for meeting with Booth a second time can be found in an 1892 article written for the Cincinnati Enquirer by George Alfred Townsend.¹⁹ In 1885, Townsend, a journalist who had written extensively on the Lincoln assassination and those involved, interviewed a man named Thomas Harbin. Harbin had served during the war as a Confederate secret service agent involved in covert operations in Charles County, Maryland, including the Bryantown area, and in King George County, Virginia.

Harbin was well-acquainted with Mudd. He had once lived a few miles south of the Mudd farm and had served as postmaster at Bryantown before the war.²⁰ He was well-connected throughout the area and knew virtually all the Confederate operatives working between Washington and Richmond. According to Harbin’s statement, he went to Bryantown in December 1864 at Mudd’s request and met with him and his friend at the Bryantown Tavern on Sunday, December 18. Harbin told of being introduced to Booth by Mudd, and although Harbin described Booth as acting rather theatrical, he consented to assist Booth in his plan to capture Lincoln. Summarizing what happened during that meeting, Townsend wrote, Harbin was a cool man who had seen many liars and rogues go to and fro in that illegal border and he set down Booth as a crazy fellow, but at the same time said that he would give his cooperation.²¹

Whatever Harbin may have thought of Booth, he agreed to join in the conspiracy. The enlistment of Harbin in Booth’s scheme was vitally important–as important as the enlistment of Surratt. Both were Confederate agents, highly competent, trusted and well-connected throughout the Confederate underground route between Washington and Richmond. Both men knew the intricacies of safe routes and safe houses located throughout southern Maryland.²²

Harbin also helped by joining with Surratt to recruit George A. Atzerodt in Booth’s conspiracy.²³ This showed that Harbin’s involvement in the plot was not superficial but serious. His help would later prove invaluable when Booth and Herold made their escape south from Washington, D.C., after crossing the Potomac River into Virginia.²⁴ Booth had Mudd to thank for the enlistment of Harbin and Surratt into his team.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to