Sold – President Lincoln Pardons a Leading Confederate Official for Treason

[He] has committed a grave offense against the laws of the said United States.

When the Civil War began, it was clear that the border states of Kentucky, Missouri and Maryland held the key to victory, and President Lincoln especially thought that maintaining the Union without holding Kentucky would not be feasible. Citizens of those states soon took sides, and in Kentucky, while the official state government remained loyal to the Union, Confederate sympathizers organized a rival government called the Provisional Government of Kentucky, to take their state into the Confederacy.  Four major government officers were installed in the offices; governor, lt. governor, treasurer and auditor. The latter office was held by Josiah Pillsbury. This government was recognized by the Confederate government in Richmond, and Kentucky was admitted to the Confederacy on December 10, 1861.

On December 8, 1863, President Lincoln issued a proclamation offering amnesty to those who had participated in the rebellion, provided that they take an oath of allegiance to the United States and agree to abide by the Emancipation Proclamation. However, some classes of people (essentially senior leaders of the Confederacy) were ineligible for this blanket amnesty; these included those who: were civil or diplomatic officers of the Confederate government, left judicial or congressional stations under the United States to aid the rebellion, were military or naval officers of the Confederacy, and were engaged in treating colored persons “otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war.” People in these categories had to specially apply to the President expressly for pardons.

By this time Kentucky was firmly and securely in the Union, and Pillsbury saw the wisdom of taking advantage of the amnesty. However, because of his office in the Provisional Government and his liability for treason, he had to apply to the President for a pardon rather than simply taking the oath of allegiance. He wasted no time in doing so. Henry Grider was a loyal Kentuckyan who represented his state in Congress throughout the Civil War. In time he would serve on the Joint Committee on Reconstruction which drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. J.R. Underwood was a former U.S. Senator from Kentucky. These loyal men, and others, supported Pillbury’s application, a fact recited in the pardon itself. Thus, most unusually, we know the actual names of those who intervened to obtain the pardon. With these men behind Pillsbury, Lincoln decided to grant the request.

Document Signed, Washington, January 4, 1864, That starts out by stating that Josiah Pillsbury, “by connecting himself in the fall of 1861 with an organization of rebels against the government of the United States, calling itself the Provisional Government of the State of Kentucky, has committed a grave offense against the laws of the said United States.” It continued that Pillsbury “has now heartily repented of his crime and taken the oath of allegiance to the United States.” Lincoln then did “hereby grant to the said Josiah Pillsbury a full and free pardon of all treasons, felonies and misdemeanors by him committed…” The document’s seal is still present, and it was countersigned by Secretary of State William Seward.

According to the study “Inside Lincoln’s Clemency Decision Making,” Lincoln issued 324 pardons as President, with only 64 of them relating to service for the Confederacy. These break down as follows: conspiracy (22), treason (17), rebellion (12), holding an office in the Confederacy (9), and serving with the rebels (4). Thus, this is one of just 17 pardons for treason issued to a Confederate that Lincoln signed. It fell to his successor to execute the lion’s share of pardons after the war ended.