Grant “In my opinion the officers and men paroled at Appomattox Court-House … cannot be tried for treason”

rickvox79

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http://grantinwartime.com/?p=4261

I saw this earlier and thought it was interesting.

I received the following letter from Robert E. Lee,


RICHMOND, June 13, 1865.


Lieutenant General U. S. GRANT,


Commanding Armies of the United States:


GENERAL: Upon reading the President’s proclamation of the 29th ultimo, I came to Richmond to ascertain what was proper or required of me to do, when I learned that with others I was to be indicted for treason by the grand jury at Norfolk. I had supposed that the officers and men of the Army of Northern Virginia were, by the terms of their surrender, protected by the United States Government from molestation so long as they conformed to its conditions. I am ready to meet any charges that may be preferred against me. I do not wish to avoid trial, but if I am correct as to the protection granted by my parole, and am not to be prosecuted, I desire to comply with the provisions of the President’s proclamation and therefore inclose the required application, which I request in that event may be acted on.


I am, with great respect, your obedient servant,


R. E. LEE


Trying Lee for treason is against both the letter and the spirit of the surrender agreement I signed in Appomattox. I endorsed this letter, sent it to Sec. Stanton and included the following note.


HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES,


June 16, 1865.


In my opinion the officers and men paroled at Appomattox Court-House, and since, upon the same terms given to Lee, cannot be tried for treason so long as they observe the terms of their parole. This is my understanding. Good faith, as well as true policy, dictates that we should observe the conditions of that convention. Bad faith on the part of the Government or a construction of that convention subjecting officers to trial for treason, would produce a feeling of insecurity in the minds of all the paroled officers and men. If so disposed they might even regard such an infraction of terms by the Government as an entire release from all obligations on their part. I will state further that the terms granted by me met with the hearty approval of the President at the time, and of the country generally. The action of Judge Underwood, in Norfolk, has already had an injurious effect, and I would ask that he be ordered to quash all indictments found against paroled prisoners of war, and to desist from further prosecution of them.


U. S. GRANT,


Lieutenant-General.





The Papers of Ulysses S Grant, Vol 15, p 149-50


O.R., I, xlvi, part 3, p 1275-6
 
And that is one of the reasons that I respect Grant. He ventured to keep his word to the conditions of the agreement that were agreed upon and as he understood them.

I think he knew what Lincoln wanted before his death as well. Lincoln didn't want a protracted witch hunt for Confederate leaders. He wanted to try and get the country back to some normalcy as quickly as possible without the spectacle of trials and mass hangings.
 
What was this action? Was it the result of something brought before him by civilian authorities?

http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Underwood_John_C_1809-1873#start_entry

An interesting bio on John Underwood listed in the link above. It appears he also went after Jefferson Davis as well. Here are some quotes from that same bio pertaining to the Grant/Lee letters.

John C. Underwood was one of the most conspicuous antislavery activists in Virginia during the 1850s, one of the first members of the Republican Party in Virginia, a federal judge from 1863 to 1873, and the president of the Constitutional Convention of 1867–1868. Born in New York, Underwood practiced law before moving to Virginia. There his condemnations of slavery were such that his wife, a cousin of the future Confederate general Thomas J. Jackson, worried for his safety. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), President Abraham Lincoln appointed Underwood a federal judge for the eastern district of Virginia. His actions on the bench often appeared to be politically motivated and included repeated efforts to confiscate the estates of Confederates in order to destroy slavery and apply what he called "retributive justice." After the war, he admitted that he could pack a jury, if necessary, to convict the former Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, of treason.

At a session of Underwood's federal court in Norfolk on June 7, the grand jury indicted Robert E. Lee and several other prominent Confederates for treason. General Ulysses S. Grant and others persuaded the federal government to ignore the indictment because it was an impediment to reconciliation and because in Lee's case it violated the terms of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox. Shortly thereafter, Underwood complained to the president that Governor Francis H. Pierpont had been too lenient in endorsing applications from former Confederates in Virginia for presidential pardons, which threatened to throw control of the state government back into the hands of the former Confederates. In October 1865 Underwood published a letter that he wrote to Thomas Bayne, a prominent African American political leader in Norfolk, enthusiastically endorsing African American suffrage and full citizenship rights for freed people.
 
And that is one of the reasons that I respect Grant. He ventured to keep his word to the conditions of the agreement that were agreed upon and as he understood them.
Yes, Grant deserves better than the bad rap he developed after the war. Did you know there is a U.S. Grant Presidential Library at Mississippi State University? It's quite interesting that it is in Mississippi and the university is very proud of it.
 
This ended up helping Raphael Semmes, too. When Semmes destroyed his vessels at the evacuation of Richmond and created an infantry unit out of the crews, he was made a brigadier general. He made certain that his parole listed him as such. After the war, when Semmes was arrested at his home in Mobile on charges of treason, with the reason that graduates of the Naval Academy and officers above a certain rank were not covered by the general amnesty, he successfully used his signed parole giving his rank as brigadier general to exempt him. The charges were dropped, and he was released, though not without a certain amount of gnashing of teeth on the part of Gideon Welles.
 
It was a grand jury that handed up the indictment. Did Underwood call the grand jury and present the evidence or were there other officials involved?

Doing some research I found that Douglas Southall Freeman mentions it in his books but when I check the footnote it says:

38 Actually he had been indicted on June 7, 1865. For ascertaining the date of this indictment, thanks are due the late Joseph P. Brady, the clerk of the United States Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. After much search, Mr. Brady found this long-sought entry in the criminal docket of the presiding judge. All the other records of the indictment have disappeared.
 
Doing some research I found that Douglas Southall Freeman mentions it in his books but when I check the footnote it says:

38 Actually he had been indicted on June 7, 1865. For ascertaining the date of this indictment, thanks are due the late Joseph P. Brady, the clerk of the United States Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. After much search, Mr. Brady found this long-sought entry in the criminal docket of the presiding judge. All the other records of the indictment have disappeared.
Underwood sounds like the kind of guy who would have called the grand jury made up of citizens of his choice, presented the evidence, and gotten the indictment. That Grant could intercede with the president and the attorney general to quash the indictment suggests to me a certain make-it-up-as-we-go-along aspect to the judicial system. I don't think there was much in the way of federal criminal procedure like we see today where judges don't launch grand juries or prosecutions.
 
Per more information I found it appears to be rumored that Grant threatened to resign if President Johnson allowed the indictments to go through.
 
http://grantinwartime.com/?p=4261

I saw this earlier and thought it was interesting.

I received the following letter from Robert E. Lee,


RICHMOND, June 13, 1865.


Lieutenant General U. S. GRANT,


Commanding Armies of the United States:


GENERAL: Upon reading the President’s proclamation of the 29th ultimo, I came to Richmond to ascertain what was proper or required of me to do, when I learned that with others I was to be indicted for treason by the grand jury at Norfolk. I had supposed that the officers and men of the Army of Northern Virginia were, by the terms of their surrender, protected by the United States Government from molestation so long as they conformed to its conditions. I am ready to meet any charges that may be preferred against me. I do not wish to avoid trial, but if I am correct as to the protection granted by my parole, and am not to be prosecuted, I desire to comply with the provisions of the President’s proclamation and therefore inclose the required application, which I request in that event may be acted on.


I am, with great respect, your obedient servant,


R. E. LEE


Trying Lee for treason is against both the letter and the spirit of the surrender agreement I signed in Appomattox. I endorsed this letter, sent it to Sec. Stanton and included the following note.
HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES,


June 16, 1865.


In my opinion the officers and men paroled at Appomattox Court-House, and since, upon the same terms given to Lee, cannot be tried for treason so long as they observe the terms of their parole. This is my understanding. Good faith, as well as true policy, dictates that we should observe the conditions of that convention. Bad faith on the part of the Government or a construction of that convention subjecting officers to trial for treason, would produce a feeling of insecurity in the minds of all the paroled officers and men. If so disposed they might even regard such an infraction of terms by the Government as an entire release from all obligations on their part. I will state further that the terms granted by me met with the hearty approval of the President at the time, and of the country generally. The action of Judge Underwood, in Norfolk, has already had an injurious effect, and I would ask that he be ordered to quash all indictments found against paroled prisoners of war, and to desist from further prosecution of them.


U. S. GRANT,


Lieutenant-General.





The Papers of Ulysses S Grant, Vol 15, p 149-50


O.R., I, xlvi, part 3, p 1275-6

This was Grant's intent. And the country sustained him.

 
Grant's policy was consistent, from Vicksburg onward. He wanted the men in any force that surrendered to go home and quit fighting. As soon as possible and as many as possible.
And Sherman was not that different. By 1865 Sherman explicitly hated the war.
 
From a legal standpoint, the surrender terms did not bind the US Government after the war. A general has no authority to issue a pardon. That authority belongs exclusively to the President of the United States and cannot be delegated. The surrender terms would be effective only during the war. They had no effect under civil law. Once Andrew Johnson declared the insurrection at an end, the protection provided by the surrender terms expired. Johnson's handing out of pardons killed any possibility of trying confederate soldiers for treason. But in the interim, it was Grant who stood between confederate soldiers and treason trials. He would not allow it, and the thanks he got was to be labeled a drunken butcher by the descendants of the men he saved. Grant should be revered by the SCV and UDC today for what he did to save their ancestors. Instead, all too often he is villified.
 
From a legal standpoint, the surrender terms did not bind the US Government after the war. A general has no authority to issue a pardon. That authority belongs exclusively to the President of the United States and cannot be delegated. The surrender terms would be effective only during the war. They had no effect under civil law. Once Andrew Johnson declared the insurrection at an end, the protection provided by the surrender terms expired. Johnson's handing out of pardons killed any possibility of trying confederate soldiers for treason. But in the interim, it was Grant who stood between confederate soldiers and treason trials. He would not allow it, and the thanks he got was to be labeled a drunken butcher by the descendants of the men he saved. Grant should be revered by the SCV and UDC today for what he did to save their ancestors. Instead, all too often he is villified.

Sherman doesn't deserve the hate he gets either.

He loved the South and liked Southerners, but just couldn't stand for secession. He was quite willing to be magnanimous to those who were no longer waging war against the United States, and originally offered Johnston and Breckenridge terms that were even more generous than those Grant offered Lee. (angering Stanton, who persuaded the cabinet to reject them)
 
Sherman doesn't deserve the hate he gets either.

He loved the South and liked Southerners, but just couldn't stand for secession. He was quite willing to be magnanimous to those who were no longer waging war against the United States, and originally offered Johnston and Breckenridge terms that were even more generous than those Grant offered Lee. (angering Stanton, who persuaded the cabinet to reject them)

It is so much easier to hate than to learn, comprehend, and understand.
 
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