Since one plague can lead to another…
Dr. Samuel Mudd (1833-1883) comes to mind, remembering the Yellow Fever epidemic that broke out at Fort Jefferson in the Gulf of Mexico, in 1868.
Dr. Mudd was imprisoned there for setting the leg of John Wilkes Booth a day after he shot and killed Abraham Lincoln,
breaking it, jumping onto the stage of Ford’s Theater from the balcony where Lincoln sat enjoying the show.
Mudd denied ever meeting Booth before, claiming when he showed up at his farm in Southern Maryland, asking for help, he was just honoring his Hippocratic Oath, or his Hypocritical Oath? 
It’s hard to believe when you read about it now, that he didn’t at least know, though he kept to his story till he died.
Despite his denials, along with two other alleged Lincoln conspirators, was tried and given a life sentence, escaping the death penalty by one vote.
While incarcerated at Fort Jefferson, the largest military prison of its time, when the fever broke out Mudd volunteered his services after 30 year-old, Joseph Sim Smith, the in-house physician died from it.
Because of his selfless service, President Andrew Johnson, ironically Lincoln’s Vice-President and reluctant successor, granted him a full pardon on February 8, 1869.
Despite efforts from his descendants to clear his name, his conviction was never overturned, leaving the sad legacy of…your name is Mudd, if one is disgraced or disappointing in any way.
The unfortunate part, it’s an expression that was used way before Dr. Mudd was stitched into the fabric of our nation’s history.
The Presidential Box at Ford’s Theater as it looks today.
As far as our pandemic goes, I guess it’s just history repeating itself…sigh
SB
If I ever knew that story, I forgot it. Thanks for writing it.
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Not a mainstreamer but, he’s part of that Lincoln lore that’s so fascinating in all its horror.
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A case of guilty until proven innocent and even then…sad for the descendants, though.
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Hey, he should have acted better.
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That’s for sure!
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Abraham Lincoln really got a bum deal. His name could never be Mudd.
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That it could not!
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I’m happy you know the story of Mr. Lincoln even though you’re a Canadian. 🙂
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Hey… He got shot on the 13th but died on my birthday. Like the Titanic hit the iceberg on the 13th but sank on my birthday…I dunno but…
And I bet I know more of American history then certain Americans! (We readers do pick up a lot…)
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History, no matter whose it is, is always interesting. 🙂
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Agreed!
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You’re the only female that seems to regularly agree with me. Wonders never cease. 🙂
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What can I say? We’re like-minded on lots of stuff 🙂
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Yes…:)
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And that’s a very nice thing, I say.
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Grasshopper never disapoints this girl.
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That, and Dr. Mudd might get you a cuppa coffee there cupcake. 🙂
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I always thought the expression originated because of Dr. Mudd. So interesting to find out that isn’t so. He definitely made the saying more widespread. I do wonder if he was ignorant of whom he was administering aid. Imagine all the mysteries we could solve if they ever come up with a time machine!
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According to Google, it’s an English expression coined long ago, but it’s more fun and sinister to attribute it to him. In my mind, he might have stopped Lincoln from being killed if he had revealed Booth’s plot but…and so it goes, says Mr. Vonnegut.
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I’m with you on the guilt of the good doctor. I do think he moved on from his “lack of attention” to do some great work. A terrific historical reference today, Susannah.
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He had good in him, clearly, but you can’t help but think of poor Abe who was only 56 when Booth put his glowing light out. Mudd also was lucky they didn’t hang him like Mrs. Surratt, the first woman to ever be executed in our country, and the last by hanging. More Lore.
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Great lore. 😁
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Just plug me in.
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No wind up key or anything. Modern lore appliances. A miracle. 😊
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I do love American History. it really floats me boat, as they say.
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I know you do. I do too.
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Yes, I know that too. 🙂
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You know that I know that you know that I know too.
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Nice to have it in common. 🙂
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😊
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Interesting. Was history your favorite subject in school?
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I hardly went to school. My love of it came much later.
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I hardly went to school either. But I loved and still love learning. I just didn’t like school. Weird but true.
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I never knew whether I liked it or not, really. You need encouragement as a kid, and since, my parents were far from scholars, I was left to my own feral devices.I’m just happy I’m the eternal student now. I so love to read and learn, write and share. I feel it’s when I’m at my best. It’s a pity it happened when I was so much older but…one appreciates everything so much more. Always an upside, my fellow proser. 🙂
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Totally unrelated, but not quite … when I was seven, we went on a 10 week vacation across the country. Living in a 20-foot trailer towed behind our Suburban. Family lore has it that one of my sisters did something that annoyed my mother (I think she tracked some dirt into the trailer or maybe plugged the toilet) and my mother opened the trailer door and yelled at her, loud enough for the entire campground to hear, “Debbie Ann, your name is mud with me!!”
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Poor Mr. Mudd. To be vilified at every turn.
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Infamous for the phrase “your name is Mudd”…as in…you are in trouble now.
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Yes, that’s right. 🙂
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I don’t think I knew this about Mr. Mudd.
As for the name Mudd, I think back to a former NBC anchor by the name of Roger Mudd whose time came after Walter Cronkite I believe. It was sort of like when Bobby Murcer replaced Mickey Mantle. Thankless.
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Googles:
Mudd is an indirect, distant relative of Dr. Samuel Mudd, the doctor who was implicated with inadvertently aiding John Wilkes Booth shortly after he assassinated U.S. president Lincoln. Many accounts have muddled the facts, assuming incorrectly that he is a direct descendant.
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I remember that part from Assassination Vacation, where they go to where he was imprisoned. Love your history pieces. 🙂
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That’s right, and apparently there’s an etching on the wall in his cell you can see. My feelings for him are dulled. Why couldn’t he have spoken if he knew about the plot? I’ve read two books on Wilkes’s infamous ride, and you see without much prodding, that he had to at least have met Wilkes before, denying even this. Something perks your senses when you read about it. Poor Abe. Wilkes honestly thought by killing him, the south could resume like before the war. What an asshole, but then again, he was not much more than a kid. He was only 26 when he died. His last words were after holding up his hands…useless, useless. sigh
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Any law that enables prosecution of a physician for treating an injury, whatever the circumstances, is iniquitous.
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Yeah, look at the whole board. If he had known of the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln, that I among others, think that he did, if he had reported it, Lincoln would have lived, and Booth brought to justice. He wasn’t convicted for setting Booth’s leg, he was believed to be a co-conspirator.
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That is a very different kettle of fish. Plotting murder, particularly of a democratically elected head of state, deserves the sternest of responses. (Sept 11th 1973).
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Forgive me, but I don’t understand the Sept. 11th reference. Can England please explain. 🙂
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The 1973 Chilean coup d’état. Would have preferred you to Google, but now at least I know.
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