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Dr. Samuel Mudd, a simple country doctor, found himself caught up in the vagaries of history, loss, betrayal and unimaginable deprivation. He paid the consequences for treating the broken leg of President Lincoln’s assassin—an unjust conviction based on political expedience—and imprisonment in Fort Jefferson on a remote island in the Gulf of Mexico. Deprived of liberty, bound in chains and banished from home and family, he spent four years living under appalling conditions.
Then the yellow fever epidemic swept through the island prison. Dr. Mudd battled the disease ceaselessly to save those who imprisoned him, before falling victim himself. After the epidemic had run its course, 300 surviving soldiers signed a petition to President Johnson to free Dr. Mudd. Yet he continued to fight relentlessly to gain his release through the federal judicial system. Through it all, he maintained his strong principles, humanity and most importantly, his hope.
