Great was the furore stirred up in legal circles over this trial, and dissenting opinion was freely expressed. Judge Andrew Wiley, of the District Supreme Court, known as one of the strongest characters on the bench, did not concur in the plans for a military trial for the conspirators. He arose early on the morning of the execution day to sign a writ of habeas corpus for the release of Mrs. Surratt. Judge Wiley, a devoted friend of Abraham Lincoln, having received his appointment to the bench from him, believed that the legality of Mrs. Surratt’s conviction by court martial should be determined by a civil court. He concurred in the effort to secure a stay of execution by signing the writ of habeas corpus, directing General Hancock to produce her in court. The writ was served, but General Hancock did not obey it. Judge Wiley’s scathing rebuke to the military authorities for thus ignoring and overriding the civil powers is one of the most notable in the annals of court history. During the short period of the trial, from May 8th to June 30th, 403 witnesses were subpœnaed, 247 examined for the prosecution, 236 for the defense, 4,300 pages of legal copy testimony taken, with an additional 700 pages of arguments. John Surratt, whose intimate association with Booth led to his mother’s being implicated, escaped to Canada and for two years evaded capture. Finally, he was apprehended, but owing to the odium that had followed the Military Commission, he had a civil court trial. This grew into such a bitter controversy over the execution of his mother that it became more of a trial of a former court than of himself, and through the failure of the jury to agree he was released. The first great task of President Johnson was the disbandment of the army. As a fitting climax to their four years of terrible struggle and hardship, President Lincoln had planned the Grand Review in Washington for May 23 and 24, 1865. To completing the preparations for this notable event, the President and Secretary Stanton devoted much attention, keenly aware of the impression which the assembly of the nation’s armed force would make upon the minds of foreign representatives and of its influence upon the general public. As the time for the pageant drew near, there came a lifting of the gloom that had enveloped the capital, still a tented city surrounded on a circuit of thirty-seven miles by a ring of sixty-eight armed forts, with their encircling watch fires--a picture that had inspired Julia Ward Howe to write the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Public squares were still occupied by camps, and all available structures, converted into hospitals, were filled to overflowing with wounded soldiers.