Of course, it will be presumed that the Commission had found the woman guilty without being pressed. But, equally of course, it will not be doubted that, in determining the sentence which should follow the verdict, the question of exercising the same mercy as the Commission had just exercised in the case of a man convicted of the same crime, must have arisen in the case of the woman. And, the question once having arisen, the first impulse of the majority, if inclined still to mercy, must have been to exert their own unquestioned function, and, as in the other cases, mitigate the sentence themselves. They would have, originally, no motive to thrust upon the President, who was to know comparatively nothing of the evidence, the responsibility of doing that thing, which they themselves who had heard the whole case thought ought to be done, and which in a parallel case they had just done. Even if they believed the woman's crime had a deeper tinge of iniquity than either Arnold's or Mudd's (of which the respective verdicts, however, give no hint), but that nevertheless her age and sex ought to save her from the scaffold, they need not have turned to the President for mercy on such a ground. The woman clothed upon by her age and sex had sat for weeks bodily before them. This very mitigation was what a majority of the Court had power to administer. The reason of the mitigation was a matter of no moment. The Court could commute for "age and sex" as well as the President, and, for that matter, could state the reason for the milder penalty in the sentence itself. Therefore, it may be taken for granted that here the Judge-Advocates again found that two-thirds of the Court would not concur in the infliction of the death penalty. Nay, that even a majority could not be obtained. Five out of the nine officers announced themselves in favor of imprisonment for life. Here, indeed, was a coil! The prosecutors were at their wits' ends. And lo! when they passed on to consider the last case, that of Dr. Mudd, the same incomprehensible reluctance to shed more blood did but add to their discomfiture. The verdict indeed had been easily obtainable, but the coveted death-sentence would not follow. The whole day had been spent in these debatings. The expedient of adjourning over to the next day, perhaps, was now tried; and the dismayed Judge-Advocates, with but three out of the eight heads they had made so sure of, and their "female fiend" likely to slip the halter, hurry away to consult with their Chief. Edwin M. Stanton, as he had presided over the whole preparatory process, so too had kept watch over the daily progress of the trial from afar. Every evening his zealous aide-de-camps made report for the day and took their orders for the morrow. After the death of Booth and the escape of John H. Surratt, the condemnation to death of the mother of the fugitive had become his one supreme aim.