General Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant

Washington, as well as the whole country, was plunged in an agony of grief, and the excitement knew no bounds. Stanton's grief was uncontrollable, and at the mention of Mr. Lincoln's name he would break down and weep bitterly. General Grant and the Secretary of War busied themselves day and night in pushing a relentless pursuit of the conspirators, who were caught, and were brought to trial before a military commission, except Booth, who was shot in an attempt to capture him. John H. Surratt, who escaped from the country, was captured and tried years later, the jury disagreeing as to his guilt.

I was appointed a member of the court which was to try the prisoners. The defense, however, raised the objection that as I was a member of General Grant's military family, and as it was claimed that he was one of the high officials who was an intended victim of the assassins, I was disqualified from sitting in judgment upon them. The court very properly sustained the objection, and I was relieved, and another officer was substituted. However, I sat one day at the trial, which was interesting from the fact that it afforded an opportunity of seeing the assassins and watching their actions before the court. The prisoners, heavily manacled, were marched into the court-room in solemn procession, an armed sentinel accompanying each of them. The men's heads were covered with thickly padded hoods with openings for the mouth and nose. The hoods had been placed upon them in consequence of Powell, alias Payne, having attempted to cheat the gallows by dashing his brains out against a beam on a gunboat on which he had been confined. The prisoners, whose eyes were thus bandaged, were led to their seats, the sentinels were posted behind them, and the hoods were then removed. As the light struck their eyes, which for several