US vs. Jefferson Davis

Lost Cause

1st Lieutenant
Joined
Sep 19, 2014
In order to prevent a derailment of the current monument thread

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/la...nt-in-the-south-is-coming-down.188623/page-28,

I have started this thread backing up the timeline, with my two cents.

Early May 1865, newly sworn US President Andrew Johnson made the following proclamation:

“Whereas, it appears from evidence in the Bureau of Military justice, that the atrocious murder of the late president, Abraham Lincoln, and the attempted assassination of the Honorable William H. Seward, secretary of state, were incited, concerted, and procured by and between Jefferson Davis, late of Richmond, Virginia," and other rebels and traitors against the government of the United States. “Now, therefore, to the end that justice may be done, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do offer and promise for the arrest of said persons, or either of them, within the limits of the United States, so that they can be brought to trial, the following rewards: one hundred thousand dollars for the arrest of Jefferson Davis," and suitable rewards were made for the arrest of all persons named in the proclamation.”

Former CS President Jefferson Davis was arrested on May 10, 1865 as an accused complicit with Lincoln’s assassination, and incarcerated for 2 years in Fort Monroe. No evidence was found linking Davis with the assassination plot. IMO, had the charge remained, Davis might have revisited the infamous “Dahlgren Affair,” where papers were discovered on Dahlgren’s body likely proving beyond reasonable suspicion that Seward authorized a failed assassination plot of Davis. Instead the charge was amended to Treason, obviously not as clear cut a convictable charge as many Unionists had anticipated.
 
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