Parole, Pardon, Pass and Amnesty Documents of the Civil War

This book presents the little-studied story of the history and documents of the pardons, passes, paroles and promises of loyalty used by both North and South. The words of the loyalty oaths required for passes, paroles and pardons grew over time from a few simple lines to several paragraphs. Conditions were added and pre-qualifications modified. This history provides insights into the politics, culture and battlefield realities present during the conduct of the war.

John Martin Davis, Jr., is a retired Dallas tax attorney and CPA who lives in Fort Davis, Texas. An authority on Texas maps, he is a member of the Philosophical Society of Texas for the Collection and Diffusion of Knowledge.

George B. Tremmel is a retired information technology director and lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has collected and studied Confederate States paper money for more than four decades and has written two award-winning books on counterfeit currency of the Confederacy as well as a number of articles on the subject for Paper Money, the Society of Paper Money Collectors journal.

John Martin Davis, Jr. and George B. Tremmel
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 196
Bibliographic Info: 165 photos, appendices, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2014
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7441-7
eISBN: 978-1-4766-0280-6
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments   iv
Foreword by Lawrence S. Rowland   1
Preface   3
Introduction   5
1. Treason   9
2. Promises of Loyalty   14
3. Passes and Paroles   24
4. Presidential Pardons   49
5. Prisoner Oaths   71
6. Paroles on Surrender   92
7. Postwar Amnesty   110
Introduction to the Appendices   139
Appendix 1: Paroles   140
Appendix 2: Passes   146
Appendix 3: Pardons   161
Appendix 4: Promises of Loyalty   166
Notes   185
Bibliography   187
Index   189

“richly illustrated…invaluable…interesting and informative”—Civil War News; “Davis and Tremmel have thoughtfully and carefully researched their subject and supplemented their work with visual reproductions of the documents in question. The valuable discussions of legal issues in this book are supplemented by numerous pictures of the documents in question”—Southwestern Historical Quarterly.