Image credit: Pixabay
Union soldiers surrounded the physician’s house.
Rodney, the lieutenant, knocked loudly. “Open up! We know you may be harboring the run-away, John Wilkes Booth!”
The door opened a crack. “I am innocent! I only set his broken leg.”
“What is your name, doctor?”
“My name is Mudd. Doctor Samuel Mudd.”
This story is based on the events following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln at Fords Theater in Washington D.C. on the night of April 14, 1865. President Lincoln then died early the next morning.
The assassin, John Wilkes Booth, went on the run on horseback with a conspirator, even though he had broken his leg jumping to the stage from a balcony. The two were harbored briefly by a physician, Dr. Samuel Mudd, who set Booth’s leg and let him go. The soldiers caught up with Mudd. He claimed his innocence, but there was proof that he had met previously with Booth, and he was jailed as a conspirator.
It has long been believed that the expression, “My name is Mudd,” originated from this event, when Mudd fell from grace. However, that is a myth. The expression was developed long before Lincoln was shot.
Thanks for reading!
