President Abraham Lincoln Pardons a Missourian Whose Heart Was Not in the Rebellion

He writes, “Let this man take the oath…& be discharged.”

Missouri was a border state with conflicted loyalties in 1861. Identity with the South was a powerful and pervasive force in Missouri society and politics. Missourians who were fundamentally Southern in culture and heritage constituted the majority of the state’s population. But there were strong links to the North, as well, particularly in the important city and railroad junction, St. Louis, and amongst the 30% of the population that was from the North or foreign born. When the Civil War broke out, the Union Army under Gen. Nathaniel Lyon seized the arsenal at St. Louis and moved its supplies to Illinois, and the pro-Southern Democratic Governor Claiborne F. Jackson called out the Missouri State Militia. Lyon perceived their maneuvers as an attempt to seize the arsenal and attacked the militia, parading them as captives through the streets of St. Louis. The next day, on May 11, 1861, the Missouri General Assembly authorized the formation of a Missouri State Guard to back the Confederacy, to be commanded by Sterling Price. Exactly two months later, Lyon met with Jackson and demanded that Missouri honor Lincoln’s call for troops to fight the rebellion. Jackson refused and was escorted (and eventually evicted) from office. The State Guard endured attacks by U.S. forces and ultimately, Claiborne Jackson and his State Guard troops were chased to southwest Missouri.

Some young men were excited by the secession mania and joined the Missouri militia in the Confederate service. But in time many of them, with their state torn asunder but leaning Union, became disillusioned, Mark Twain being the most famous example. He spent a few weeks in the Confederate militia before skedaddling and heading West to Nevada.

President Lincoln wanted to implement a lenient policy for reconstruction for the South. A key part of this plan was put into place on December 8, 1863, when he issued a proclamation that provided guidelines for the systematic reestablishment of loyal state governments in that region. It also contained a means of repatriating those who had “participated in the existing rebellion” and now wanted to resume their allegiance: he would issue a full pardon if they took a prescribed oath of loyalty. Significantly, the pardon provided for restoration of all rights of property except as to slaves. This was the required oath: “I do solemnly swear, in presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the union of the States thereunder; and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during the existing rebellion with reference to slaves…and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all proclamations of the President made during the existing rebellion having reference to slaves…So help me God.”

Many persons in southern areas under Union control, as well as Confederate soldiers held as prisoners of war in the North (including those who had been reluctantly drafted into the Southern service or gotten themselves involved in something that they really did not have their heart in) thought the war as good as lost and sought to take Lincoln up on his offer. They or their friends wrote the President explaining their situations and sincerity, and asking for the pardon. He would write his order on the back of the letter and send it on to the appropriate department. This is one of those pardons, cut from the back of just such a letter.

Autograph Note Signed as President, Washington, March 16, 1865. “Let this man take the oath of Dec. 8, 1863 & be discharged.” On the verso of the note one still finds a fraction of the letter sent by the rebel Missouri soldier asking for the pardon. It is addressed “Mr. President”, mentions he was from a county in “Mo.”, and that he was in “state service” rather than the Confederate Army proper, and served for only “six months.” He clearly hoped this would sway Lincoln.

This an interesting memento of Lincoln’s legendary leniency from the last few months of the war. Handwritten Lincoln letters, notes and endorsements from his second term are quite uncommon. This, dated less than a month before his death, is the second to latest dated we have had in all these decades.