Alexandria Gazette

MR. SOWERS ACQUITTED.-We have the gratification to announce that Mr. A. A. Sowers, indicted for burning the barn of the unfortunate Miller, has been fully acquitted of the base and horrible crime. The jury were out but a few minutes, and came at once, we understand, to a spontaneous expression of "not guilty:" Judge Thompson, in his remarks on the rendition of the verdict. observed to the jury that he was not merely satisfied with their verdict, but that he could have consented to no other-that all the evidence adduced in the case had not raised in his mind even a shadow of suspicion of the prisoner's guilt- and that he could only account for the accusation and the weight given to the circumstances which were relied on to sustain it, by the embarrassed and excited state of the public mind amongst us-circumstances which, to him, under the numerous burnings committed a- were as strongly indicative of the innocence, as they had been assumed to be by others of the guilt of the accused.
We have not time now to give a history of this deeply interesting case, which has so extensively agitated our community, and indeed the whole country wherever intelligence of it has spread-but shall do so, probably, at an early day. The circumstances of the accused in life-being of a respectable and wealthy family, and moreover himself a young man of brilliant mind and education, though somewhat eccentric in his manners and habits- may well explain the feeling and interest which the case has excited, apart from the horrible nature and circumstances of the offence with which he was charged. The Court House was thronged during the whole trial, protracted as it was-and even the ladies, towards the close, were seen to crowd into the gallery, and bear patiently for hours the suffocating atmosphere.
We are glad to find that there is a general concurrence among our citizens in the justice of the verdict: indeed, we were satisfied. at the close of the testimony, that no other could be rendered.
The prosecution was most ably and faithfully conducted by Messrs. Fultz and Peyton- and the defence as ably and faithfully by Messrs. Young. Michie and Baldwin.-Staunton Spectator.