New Article: Samuel Mudd’s Legacy on Smithsonianmag.com

Samuel Mudd's prison at Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas
Fort Jefferson, where Samuel Mudd was captive for four years.

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination–and inspired by my recent vacation to Florida–I contributed a feature to Smithsonianmag.com about the little-known legacy of Samuel Mudd. The infamous surgeon who set John Wilkes Booth’s  broken leg was sentenced to life and condemned to the notorious army prison at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, a remote island in the Gulf of Mexico. He only served four years, partly due to his heroic action during a yellow fever epidemic at the fort. The story was published on April 14, 2015, exactly 150 years after Lincoln’s death. Read all about it here (and check out my photos, too)!

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