Their testimony occupies about two thousand pages of manuscript, and is, without doubt, the most, terrible record of crime ever laid to the account of any man.
The taking of this testimony occupied until October 18, when the Government decided to close the case, as any further evidence would be simply cumulative.
The prisoner presented a statement in which he denied that there had been an accomplice in a conspiracy of John H.Winder and others, to destroy the lives of United States soldiers; he also denied that there had been such a conspiracy, but made the pertinent inquiry why he alone, of all those who were charged with the conspiracy, was brought to trial.

He said that Winder has gone to the great judgment seat, to answer for all his thoughts, words and deeds, "and surely I am not to be held culpable for them.

General Howell Cobb has received the pardon of the President of the United States." He further claimed that there was no principle of law which would sanction the holding of him--a mere subordinate -- guilty, for simply obeying, as literally as possible, the orders of his superiors.
He denied all the specific acts of cruelty alleged against him, such as maltreating and killing prisoners with his own hands.

The prisoners killed for crossing the Dead Line, he claimed, should not be charged against him, since they were simply punished for the violation of a known order which formed part of the discipline, he believed, of all military prisons.

The statement that soldiers were given a furlough for killing a Yankee prisoner, was declared to be "a mere idle, absurd camp rumor." As to the lack of shelter, room and rations for so many prisoners, he claimed that the sole responsibility rested upon the Confederate Government.