"The grand jury of the District of Columbia have indicted the prisoner at the bar, John H. Surratt, as one of the murderers of Abraham Lincoln. It has become your duty to judge whether he be guilty or innocent of that charge,--a duty than which one more solemn or momentous never was committed to human intelligence. You are to turn back the leaves of history to that red page on which is recorded in letters of blood the awful incidents of that April night on which the assassin's work was done on the body of the Chief Magistrate of the American republic,--a night on which for the first time in our existence as a nation, a blow was struck with the fell purpose not only of destroying human life, but the life of the nation, the life of liberty itself. Though more than two years have passed by since then, you scarcely need witnesses to describe to you the scene in Ford's Theatre as it was visible in the last hour of the President's conscious life. It has been present to your thoughts a thousand times since then. A vast audience were assembled, whose hearts were throbbing with a new joy, born of victory and peace, and above them the object of their gratitude and reverence,--he who had borne the nation's burdens through many and disastrous years,--sat tranquil and at rest at last, a victor indeed, but a victor in whose generous heart triumph awakened no emotions save those of kindliness, of forgiveness, and of charity. To him, in that hour of supreme tranquility, to him in the charmed circle of friendship and affection, there came the form of sudden and terrible death. "Persons who were then present will tell you that at about twenty minutes past ten o'clock that night, the night of the 14th of April, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, armed with pistol and knife, passed rapidly from the front door of the theatre, ascended to the dress circle, and entered the President's box. By the discharge of a pistol he inflicted a death wound, then leaped upon the stage, and passing rapidly across it, disappeared into the darkness of the night.