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About the author
Robert K. Summers
Robert Summers has written and published two books. The first book, The Assassin's Doctor, is a biography of his great grandfather, Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, who provided medical assistance to John Wilkes Booth following the Lincoln assassination. Robert's earlier writings on Dr. Mudd have all been incorporated into The Assassin's Doctor. <br><br>Robert's mother was born and raised on the Mudd family farm where John Wilkes Booth sought medical help from Dr. Mudd after Booth had assassinated president Lincoln. Her father was Samuel Mudd II, a one year-old baby when Booth came to the farm. Her room growing up on the farm in the early 1900's was the same room Booth stayed in when he was there in 1865.<br><br>Dr. Mudd was not a subject of much discussion when Robert was growing up, despite many happy visits to the Mudd farm as a youngster. As an adult, he learned more about Dr. Mudd's involvement in the Lincoln assassination story, and decided to conduct additional research into Dr. Mudd's life. The Assassin's Doctor contains information about Dr. Mudd's life never reported before.<br><br>Robert's second book, Maryland's Black Civil War Soldiers, is the story of Maryland's 19th Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops. In addition to a history of the regiment's actions during the Civil War, the book includes short biographies of each of the thousand soldiers in the regiment. Anyone conducting genealogical research on these soldiers will find this information invaluable. <br><br>This large book was a ten year project, requiring the personal review of the soldiers' military and pension files at the U.S. National Archives in Washington, D.C. The regiment was organized and trained at Camp Stanton, only ten miles from Dr. Mudd's farm. Most of the soldiers were former slaves from farms in southern Maryland and the eastern shore of Maryland. Some had been slaves on Mudd family farms.<br><br>Robert has also published a reprint of The Life of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, originally written and published by Dr. Mudd's youngest daughter Mary Eleanor "Nettie" Mudd in 1906. The book is now in the public domain, the 1906 copyright having expired. This reprint contains 100% of the original 1906 book, plus photos and letters added by Robert that were not in the original book. Nettie is Robert’s great aunt. Her brother, Samuel A. Mudd II, is Robert’s maternal grandfather.<br>