Thomas Ewing Jr.: Frontier Lawyer and Civil War General

10. Dr. Mudd's Trial and Widow Adie's Cotton

n April , , Good Friday, four years to the day after the war began, the flamboyant John Wilkes Booth accomplished what the mercurial William Quantrill had only schemed to do. At Ford’s Theater the actor entered the president’s box while the president and Mary Lincoln were watching a play and fired his pistol into the back of Lincoln’s skull. In the screams and confusion, Booth leapt onto the stage, broke his leg, and limped out the backdoor. Within the hour he had vanished, riding a horse into Maryland. The nation was stunned. After all the bloodletting of the Civil War, Lincoln’s death made no sense at all. One Confederate army had capitulated; the other was in camps with its arms stacked, hungry, demoralized, and waiting for terms of surrender . Confederate government officials had disappeared into the countryside. Northern radicals were already planning a harsh peace for the South. While history notes that Lincoln might not have been as forgiving to the South as postwar legend might make out, nobody profited from Lincoln’s death, least of all the South. Lincoln’s death left the country in Andrew Johnson’s hands, and Johnson had neither a vision for Reconstruction nor any plan on how to handle the radicals . Orville Browning wrote to his diary the night Lincoln was assassinated, “I  10 DR. MUDD’S TRIAL AND WIDOW ADIE’S COTTON O  THOMAS EWING JR. have never feared what the rebels could do to us—I do fear what we may do to ourselves.”1 Stanton took charge of the investigation and resulting manhunt almost immediately . Treachery would be met with the full weight of federal might. However , news of the murder itself and the identity of the murderer were not released for several days. At the Maryland farm of Doctor Samuel Mudd, two men appeared at his door and asked the doctor to set a broken leg. Neither man identified himself. The doctor’s wife noticed that one of the men was wearing fake whiskers, as an actor might wear onstage. Booth spent a day with Mudd under an alias, then he left. Rewards for knowledge of Booth’s whereabouts were posted on April . The next day, after the discovery of a boot belonging to Booth, Mudd was taken to Bryantown and was asked to give a written statement. In his statement he indicated that neither man had given him any clue to suggest he might have been part of an assassination. Booth gave his name as Tyser or Tyson. The younger man, David Herold, gave his name as Henson. Without knowledge of who his patient was, Mudd could not logically be tied to the conspiracy. As a result of information from other sources, Mudd and other conspirators were questioned vigorously and then formally arrested on May , . Booth was cornered and shot dead by federal cavalry nineteen days later. Herold was captured.2 A jury pool from Washington would undoubtedly contain many Southern sympathizers, and Stanton was not going to tolerate any sort of jury nullification . Booth was dead, but the conspirators would be court-martialed. While General Hugh Ewing’s last days of military service were spent in trials in military courts, the entire Ewing family was not radical enough for Stanton, thus Hugh never made the short list of officers for the conspiracy court. Eight generals and two colonels were named to the panel, with Major General David Hunter presiding.3 Private defense counsel did not line up for assignments in this high-profile case. John Ford, the owner of the theater and an old Whig friend of Thomas Ewing Sr., had agreed to pay the legal fees for his employees Samuel Arnold and Edward . Browning, Diary, :. For Southern reaction, see O.R. ::. . Mudd’s statements from Elden C. Weckesser, His Name Was Mudd: The Life of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, Who Treated the Fleeing John Wilkes Booth, –. See also Laurie Verge, ed., “From War Department Files. Statements Made By The Alleged Lincoln Conspirators Under Examination ,” Clinton: Surratt Society (): –. . Ewing, “Autobiography,” .  DR. MUDD’S TRIAL AND WIDOW ADIE’S COTTON Spangler. Spangler was charged with aiding Booth in gaining entrance to the presidential box at Ford’s Theater and aiding his escape from the theater after Booth jumped to the stage. Arnold had provided transportation for what turned out to be Booth’s escape from the theater. Ford asked Tom Ewing to represent his...