George Purnell Fisher (Dictionary of American Biography)

At Washington in 1861, he soon won the high regard of Lincoln, becoming the almoner of federal patronage in his state and helping to prepare a bill to carry out Lincoln’s plan of gradual emancipation in Delaware. The project failed, but Fisher’s efforts so impressed Lincoln that, on the abolition of the old courts and the creation of a supreme court for the District of Columbia, he appointed Fisher as one of the four justices, on Mar. 11, 1863, eight days after his congressional term had expired. Fisher is said to have displayed great ability on the bench and was praised especially for his conduct, in January 1867, of the first trial of John H. Surratt for participation in Lincoln’s assassination. In May 1870 he was appointed by President Grant as United States attorney for the District of Columbia, but five years later he returned to Delaware. He was recalled to public life by President Benjamin Harrison in June 1889 to serve as first auditor of the treasury, a position which he held until the change of administration in 1893. The last years of his life he devoted to reading and literary pursuits, dying after a brief illness at Washington.