Parole question

[AndyHall]

So where/how would I look for a parole record retained by the federal government ?

Those I have found are in Compiled Service Records.

 

[John Winn]

Those I have found are in Compiled Service Records.

Well, back to square one !

 

[Reb]

Sometimes the retained (government) copy of the parole document is there, as well. Here's my g-g-grandfather's from Vicksburg:



This last one showed me that James E. B. Hall, who had just turned 18, could not sign his name and had to make his mark instead. I'm pleased to know that he did learn to read and write before he died in 1883.

That is sweet. I would frame it and put it on my wall

 

[TerryB]

On the issue of a guy wandering toward home with no papers. He might not get stopped because it was always possible for one man or a small group to evade detection if they went out of their way. But if you stay on the roads, you will have to cross a roadblock or be stopped by a patrol. If you have no papers, you could be detained until you took the oath. I have seen many records of soldiers who took the oath on their way home, rather than back at camp before heading home. Others, Tennesseans I looked up, if they lived near Nashville, went to the courthouse to take the oath. Since the war was not officially over when Johnston, Forrest, et al, surrendered, many of these soldiers had already been paroled, but took the oath later, at home, when it became obvious that the war was finally over. However, I can't speak to Virginia, except to say that the newspapers were reporting that thousands of Rebels not actually with Lee at the surrender were trekking across Virginia on their way home, and that thousands more had taken up residence in DC. This latter fact prompted Stanton (whether with consent of Congress or not I don't recall) to declare it illegal to wear a Rebel uniform in Washington City.

 

[AndyHall]

That is sweet. I would frame it and put it on my wall

That's from Fold3. I don't have any original documents; they've been scattered to family members, lost in house fires, and so on.

 

[Suzanne A]

What does his last service record entry say? That he was returned to duty? Then was he AWOL or a deserter? or just no records? The Union might not have bothered to take a sick man prisoner. In my experience they don't like to take anyone on who is going to burden their hospital/medical system, for example they won't muster in anyone who is sick or injured.
I have noticed that being sent to a hospital presents an excellent opportunity to desert. Some of my Winston Co. Alabama relatives were impressed into the Confederate Army on threat of their lives and that was their strategy. They were eventually listed as deserters. My deserter relatives never went home until the War was over, too dangerous. I don't really know what they did, but they probably stayed in Union held territory. Your relative could have stayed with the Union Army or had friends similarly situated. Not speaking of your family now, but there was a whole segment of residents in the Confederacy who were small farmers, many of Scots-Irish descent, who were pro-Union and didn't see any reason to support the slave holding Southern aristocracy at the cost of their lives. This type of Southerner was well known by the Union Army who sometimes enlisted them, but in any case was not in general hostile to them in Union-held territory because they were one less Confederate soldier to fight as long as they weren't with their regiment.

I sympathize, it's annoying not to know exactly what happened to him. But at least you do know he returned home. If he was sick then, he was probably sick the whole time and never recovered in Richmond.

Your ancestor definitely does not fit the profile of the Southern Yankee

I'm thinking maybe he was on duty in the hospital. That is a possibility, convalescent soldiers were assigned tasks and sometimes placed on detached duty in hospitals. Hospital surgeons bent the rules to get the result they wanted re their favorite or particularly useful patients. Sometimes they kept them around and busy in the hospital to keep them off the battlefield. They knew what to put in the paperwork to get the result they wanted.

I really don't see anything here indicating he was captured or had not reported as expected, so I doubt that happened. We are unfamiliar with these long convalescent periods, today hospitals are for acute care only, but these soldiers could spend months and months in hospitals. And as they got capable of assisting in some way, they were asked to do so. They could have had tuberculosis or probably other progressive diseases or their wounds got infected and without antibiotics, the infection sometimes became very serious, permanently damaging organs or part of the body, and seemingly lasting for months, probably because the patients were re-infected every time their wounds were dressed. Often the infections were eventually fatal. The weeks and weeks of bed rest they were given probably would not be considered effective treatment today either, it might have further weakened them. Whatever the medical causes, many men did live the rest of their lives with illness or partial disability due to infection or disease acquired during their service. Malaria which recurred from time to time, especially under stress, was another life-long affliction.