Bid to Clear Doctor Who Treated Lincoln Assassin Advances
LANSING, Mich. — An attempt to clear the name of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who set John Wilkes Booth’s broken leg after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, has moved another step in the Michigan Legislature.
The House Oversight and Ethics Committee on Monday sent to the full House a resolution urging President Clinton and the Army to exonerate the doctor. The Senate has already approved the measure.
Mudd was convicted of conspiracy, although he insisted that he knew nothing of the killing when Booth went to him for help.
“It’s the least we can do for him,†said Laura Chappelle, a great-great-granddaughter of Mudd and an aide to state Sen. William Van Regenmorter, the sponsor of the measure.
Last July, William D. Clark, acting assistant secretary of the Army, rejected the recommendation of the Army Board for Correction of Military Records that Mudd’s conviction be overturned.
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