Dr. Mudd was one of eight persons convicted of conspiracy in the 1865 assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Four of those convicted were immediately executed. The other four, including Dr. Mudd, were sent to the Fort Jefferson military prison in the Dry Tortugas islands. These islands lie about 70 miles west of Key West Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. Havana, Cuba lies about 90 miles south of the prison. Fort Jefferson was the most remote and desolate military prison in the United States. The Life of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was written by his daughter Nettie Mudd in 1906, forty-one years after the assassination. Her purpose in writing it was to vindicate the name of her father. The book remains a classic reference in the larger story of the Lincoln assassination. While the book covers Dr. Mudd's entire life, readers will probably find the most fascinating part to be the letters exchanged between Dr. Mudd, his wife, relatives, and friends during his 44 months of imprisonment. He received a life sentence, but was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in 1869. The pardon was based in part on Dr. Mudd's heroic work during a yellow fever epidemic at the prison in 1867. When the epidemic had run its course, 300 surviving soldiers signed a petition to President Johnson to free Dr. Mudd. After being pardoned, Dr. Mudd returned home to resume the life of a physician and farmer. He passed away fourteen years later at the young age of 49.