In Washington, D.C., Mary Harris goes on trial for the sensational murder of her former lover at the Treasury building

The three week trial of Mary Harris for murder opened in Washington D.C. and became a national sensation.  She had shot dead her former lover, A. Judson Burroughs, who had married another, as he left his work in the Treasury Department on January 30, 1865.  Her defense team pleaded her temporary insanity, brought on by female hysteria and pre-menstrual syndrome.  The jury eventually judged her "not guilty," the first recorded case for a woman so pleading. (By John Osborne)