Abraham Lincoln - American Memory

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there last fall, he knew that one, but concealed the fact that this man
had been at his house on that day and was then at his house, and
had attempted, in his presence, to disguise his person? He.was
sorry, very sorry, that the thing had occurred, but not so sorry
as to be willing to give any evidence to these two neighbors, who
were manifestly honest and upright men, that the murderer had
been harbored in his house all day, and was probably at that
moment, as his own subsequent confession shows, lying concealed
in his house or near by, subject to his call. This is the man
who undertakes to show by his own declaration, offered in evi-
dence against my protest, of w T hat he said afterwards, on Sunday
afternoon, the 16th, to his kinsman Dr. George D. Mudd, to whom he
then stated that the assassination of the President was a most
damnable act—a conclusion in which most men will agree with him,
and to establish which his testimony was not needed. But it is to
be remarked that this accused did not intimate that the man whom
he knew the evening before was the murderer had found refuge in
his house, had disguised his person, and sought concealment in the
swamp upon the crutches which he had provided for him. Why did
he conceal this fact from his kinsman ? After the church services
were over, however, in another conversation on their way home, he
did tell Dr. George Mudd that two suspicious persons had been at
his house, who had come there a little before daybreak on Saturday
morning ; that one of them had a broken leg, which he bandaged ;
that they got something to eat at his house ; that they seemed to be
laboring under more excitement than probably would result from the
injury ; that they said they came from Bryantown, and inquired the
way to Parson Wilmer's ; that while at his house one of them called
for a razor and shaved himself. The witness says, "I do not remem-
ber whether he said that this party shaved off his whiskers or his
moustache, but he altered somewhat, or probably materially, his fea-
tures." Finally, the prisoner, Dr. Mudd, told this witness that he,
in company with the younger of the two men, went down the road
towards Bryantown in search of a vehicle to take the wounded man
away from his house. How comes it that he concealed in this con-
versation the fact proved, that he went with Herold towards Bryan-
town and left Herold outside of the town ? How comes it that in this
second conversation, on Sunday, insisted upon here with such perti-
nacity as evidence for the defence, but which had never been called
for by the prosecution, he concealed from his kinsman the fact which
he had disclosed the day before to Hardy and Farrell, that it was