Executive Pardons for CSS Virginia crew

[PJ Steed]

I recently came across my GGG-Grandfather's executive pardon from the Civil War and that got me to thinking. Did he have to apply for this pardon or was it automatic? He originally served in the US Navy and resigned his commission at the start of the war to join the "Reb Navy." He was assigned to the CSS Virginia for her entire existance and was part of the crew that scuttled her at the end before he was transfered to another ship.

 

[Republican Blues]

Gonna take some research to find that out, but in the meantime. WOW very cool family history

 

[James B White]

I recently came across my GGG-Grandfather's executive pardon from the Civil War and that got me to thinking. Did he have to apply for this pardon or was it automatic? He originally served in the US Navy and resigned his commission at the start of the war to join the "Reb Navy." He was assigned to the CSS Virginia for her entire existance and was part of the crew that scuttled her at the end before he was transfered to another ship.

Google: law pardon confederate soldiers 1865

Fifth result on the first page:
http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1187

On May 29, 1865, President Johnson issued an amnesty proclamation. Under this proclamation any former Confederate who had not already taken advantage of President Lincoln's 1863 amnesty proclamation, could receive amnesty, upon their taking an oath to defend the Constitution and the Union, and to obey all Federal laws and proclamations in reference to slavery made during the rebellion. President Lincoln's 1863 amnesty proclamation had similar requirements.
The proclamation excluded amnesty from the following individuals except upon special application to the President:

• Individuals who had absented themselves from the U.S. in order to aid in the rebellion
• Graduates of West Point or Annapolis who served as Confederate officers
• Ex-Confederate governors
• Persons who left homes in territory under U.S. jurisdiction for purposes of aiding the rebellion
• Persons who engaged in destruction of commerce on the high seas or in raids from Canada
• Voluntary participants in the rebellion who had property valued at more than $20,000
• Persons who had broken the oath taken under the provisions of the proclamation of 1863
• Civil or diplomatic agents or officials of the Confederacy
• Persons who left judicial posts under the U.S. to aid the rebellion
• Confederate military officers above the rank of Army colonel or Navy lieutenant
• Members of the U.S. Congress who left to aid in the rebellion
• Persons who resigned commissions in the U.S. Army or Navy and afterwards aided in the rebellion
• Persons who treated unlawfully black prisoners of war and their white officers
• Persons in military or civilian confinement or custody

The president received thousands of amnesty applications. By late 1867 he had already granted 13,500 pardons. In September 1867, the president issued a second proclamation which reduced the number of exception categories from 14 to 3. On July 4, 1868 President Johnson issued his third proclamation which only excluded Jefferson Davis (President of the Confederate States of America), John C. Breckinridge (Confederate Secretary of War and a Confederate general), Robert E. Lee (Confederate general), and a few others. On Christmas Day of the same year Johnson issued his final proclamation, which granted amnesty to all who had participated in the rebellion.

The parts in bold would indicate your GGG-grandfather needed to apply specifically for a pardon certainly before September 1867, but not after July 4, 1868. An additional search ought to turn up the categories between those dates pretty easily.

 

[PJ Steed]

James White, thank you for the information. Now I know that I need to continue looking for his request for pardon.