Abraham Lincoln: Only I Have the Authority to Pardon Senior Confederate Officers

“The Commissary of Prisoners detains such cases until further hearing from me.”

 

Charles James Faulkner was a seasoned politico in Virginia. As a member of the House of Delegates in January 1832, when the future of slavery in Virginia was debated, he made a long speech that described slavery as an inherited evil institution that retarded economic development and endangered the safety of white people. He endorsed a plan of gradual emancipation that he hoped would not infringe on the property rights of owners of slaves. Indeed, he himself owned slaves. In 1851 he endorsed retaining the property qualification for the franchise as a proper method of protecting the rights of owners of property, as well as taxing slaves according to their market value.

He went to Congress in 1851 and rose to be the chair of the Committee on Military Affairs, but in 1859 he was defeated for reelection. That year President James Buchanan rewarded his loyalty by giving him one of the plum positions in U.S. diplomacy – the ambassadorship to France. He was in Paris when the Civil War erupted. Recalled by the incoming Lincoln administration, he delayed returning to Washington until August 1861. Federal authorities promptly arrested him with accusations that he negotiated sales of arms to the Confederacy, which likely explains his delay in leaving France for home. He was imprisoned, first in Washington, and ended up at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. An exchange was contemplated – Faulkner for Alfred Ely, a New York congressman who was one of the many who went from Washington to witness the Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, and were dismayed to find it was not a certain victory but rather a defeat. Their picnic lunches were ruined, and a number, like Ely, were captured by the triumphant Confederates.

But Confederate President Jefferson Davis had other ideas about Faulkner. In his annual message to the Confederate Congress at Richmond, Davis declared he would make Faulkner’s arrest a ground of arraignment before the civilized world; thus he was in no hurry to approve an exchange. After considerable delay, the Union leadership decided that Faulkner should be granted a parole for 30 days to go to Richmond and effect, if possible, an exchange between himself and Ely. Faulkner pleaded his case before Davis, who reluctantly consented to the exchange. So in December Faulkner returned to his home in Martinsburg, Virginia, and within a few days was appointed Assistant Adjutant General with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel on the staff of General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson. General Jackson referred to him as being of great service. He served until the end of the war, though whether he was in the field after Jackson’s death is not known.

His son Captain Elisha Boyd Faulkner also served in the Confederate army, and Union forces captured him in June 1864. He was confined on Johnson’s Island in Ohio.

Elisha’s sister sought a pardon for her brother to get him released, but apparently did so under false pretenses, claiming or implying that her brother was a private. He was ordered released, but Lincoln discovered the subterfuge. Here he makes known his internal policy that, while the mass of Confederate servicemen could be pardoned without his investigation and approval, applications from those captain and above were sent to him by the Commissary of Prisoners for his specific review and approval. So Faulkner had surreptitiously slipped under the radar, and Lincoln was having none of it. But the wily Lincoln had a plan in mind, seeing that the real possibilities in this situation did not center on the son, but the father. If he could negotiate for a major diplomat who had assisted the rebellion from France and was later a key aide to General Stonewall Jackson to surrender himself and sign the oath of allegiance, it would be a coup as the war stood at that time. Here is the bargain he offered Miss Faulkner.

Autograph letter signed, on Executive Mansion letterhead, Washington, January 9, 1865. “It is with regret that I learned that your brother, whom I had ordered to be discharged on taking the oath, under the impression that he was a private, is a captain. By an understanding, the Commissary of Prisoners detains such cases until further hearing from me.

“I now distinctly say that if your Father shall come within our lines and take the oath of Dec. 8, 1863, I will give him a full pardon, and will, at the same time, discharge your brother on his taking the oath, notwithstanding he is a captain.”

Lincoln’s ploy didn’t work. The senior Faulkner declined to surrender himself and sign the oath, and in fact even after the war never signed it. The son, the supposed private but actual Captain Elisha Boyd Faulkner, was not discharged. He took the oath of allegiance on May 30, 1865, over a month after the war’s end and Lincoln’s death, and was released in June 1865.

This letter is extraordinary for two reasons. We’ve never before seen Lincoln state flatly that he had a policy of reserving to himself the right to pardon or refuse pardon to senior Confederate officers. Nor have we ever seen him negotiate in this way; in fact it gives an insight into Lincoln’s method of negotiation.