Samuel Arnold

Samuel Bland Arnold (September 6, 1834 – September 21, 1906) was involved in the plot to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. He and the other conspirators, John Wilkes Booth, David Herold, Lewis Powell, Michael O'Laughlen and John Surratt, were to kidnap Lincoln and hold him to exchange for the Confederate prisoners in Washington D.C.. This was attempted twice, but failed as Lincoln was not where they thought he would be. Arnold and O'Laughlen dropped out of the conspiracy when the prisoner-exchange program started. After Booth's April 14, 1865 assassination of Lincoln, Arnold was arrested on suspicion of complicity and was sentenced to life in prison at Fort Jefferson, along with Samuel Mudd, Michael O'Laughlen, and Edmund Spangler.…more