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State of Wisconsin County of Grant SS

Samuel L. Benedict being duly sworn says that at a Regular Term of the Circuit Court held in & for the county of Portage in May 1858, the Hon. G.W. Gate presiding as Circuit judge the following pretended sentence was pronounced against him namely: "The prisoner now being brought into court to receive the sentence the court your said prisoner the following sentence: That you now be remanded to the State Prison, and then and there to be confined during you natural life" - That under as by virtue of said pretended sentence and without any other authority this deponent was conveyed to the State Prison of said state on the 20th day of May 1858 and therein confined by the commissioner of said State Prison and treated as a convict from the date aforesaid until on or about the first of August 1860, that during the time aforesaid this deponent was confined to hard labor, and did work faithfully for the state of Wisconsin, and the deponent further says that his time and labor during the period aforesaid was reasonably worth the sum of Five Hundred dollars, and he claims the further sum of five hundred dollars for his [illegible] confinement and imprisonment, as will more fully appear by the decission of the Supreme Court in the 12th of the Wisconsin Reports on page 313, he also alleges that hew was innosent of the offence charged, that all he did was in self-defence and which he was justifiable in doing and as further evidence of this he state that when he was subsequently granted a New Trial by the Supreme Court that before the day of trial the District Attorney of Portage