Twelve witnesses testified that they saw John H. Surratt in Washington on the 14th of April, only one of whom had testified to that effect on the other trial. It is curious now to discern how the memory of the witnesses, it may be unconsciously, swerved under pressure toward the mark of identification. The witnesses for the defense established that the prisoner was in Elmira on the afternoon of the 13th, made it more than probable he was there on the 14th, and almost certain he was there on the 15th. The prosecution, under the force of this proof, suddenly conceded his presence in Elmira on the 13th, and then, by the accident of a special train and the testimony of a ferryman whom the notorious Montgomery unearthed in the very crisis of the emergency, contrived with much straining to land him in Washington at 10 o'clock on the morning of the fatal day. Any calm observer, reading the account of the trial now, can see plainly that the truth is, the prisoner had not been in Washington since the 3rd of April.
The production of Booth's diary by the prosecuting officers was forced upon them by the popular indignation over its suppression before the Military Commission; otherwise, it is clear they would not have been guilty of such a mistake in tactics as its introduction as a part of the case for the United States. Its opening sentences--"Until to-day nothing was ever thought of sacrificing to our country's wrongs. For six months we had worked to capture. But our cause being almost lost something decisive and great must be done"--settled the question of a plot to kidnap suddenly given up; and the testimony of Weichman indicated the hour of abandonment.
That every conceivable effort to obtain the conviction of the prisoner was made, and that a most formidable array of circumstances was marshalled against him, compared to which the two disconnected pieces of evidence which were so magnified against his mother seem weak indeed, will be controverted by no sane person. From June 10th to August 7th--nearly two months--the contest went on. On the last-mentioned day, which was Wednesday, Judge Fisher delivered his remarkable charge, and a little before noon the jury retired. At one o'clock in the afternoon of Saturday, the 10th, after a session of three days and three nights, a communication was received from the jury to the effect that they stood as at first, nearly equally divided, that they could not possibly agree, and the health of several of their numbers was becoming seriously impaired. The Court, notwithstanding the protest of the prisoner, discharged the jury, and the prisoner was remanded to jail.