It was during this same investigation, that the diary of Booth, which had been so carefully concealed by the War Department and the Bureau of Military Justice from the Military Commission, was unearthed. Its publication produced a profound sensation, as it made clear the reality of a plan to capture the President; a plan, which had been blasted by the collapse of the Rebellion and, only at the last moment and without consultation, arbitrarily superseded by a hurried resolution to kill. When produced by Judge Holt before the committee, its mutilated condition gave rise to a terrible suspicion. Holt, himself, and Stanton were confident the book was in the same condition as when they first saw it. Colonel Conger, also, though not positive, thought it was unchanged since he took it from the dead body of Booth. But, to the great wonder of everybody, the distinguished detective, General Baker, testified, and stuck to it with emphasis when recalled, that, when he first examined the diary before it was lodged with the Secretary of War, there were no leaves missing and no stubs, although the diary, as exhibited to the committee, showed by means of the stubs remaining that sixteen or twenty leaves had been cut or torn out. The disclosures made by the production of the diary, together with the fact of its suppression, stirred the soul of General Butler; and, in this way, it came about that the ghost of Mrs. Surratt stalked one day into the House of Representatives. Judge Bingham, in his rollicking way, was upbraiding General Butler for having voted for Jefferson Davis fifty times as his candidate for President, and slurring his war record by calling him "the hero of Fort Fisher;" when, suddenly, at the petrific retort of his adversary that "the only victim of the gentleman's prowess was an innocent woman hung upon the scaffold!" the spectre stood before him, forcing, as from "white lips and chattering teeth," the exclamation of Macbeth: "Thou canst not say I did it!" "Look to the true and brave and honorable men who found the facts upon their oaths and pronounced the judgment!" he retorted, clutching at the self-soothing sophistry of the murderer of Banquo, ignoring the fact that he himself was a part of the tribunal and virtually dictated the judgment.