Rebel Salvation: Pardon and Amnesty of Confederates in Tennessee by Kathleen Zebley Liulevicius

Abstract

Reviewed by: Rebel Salvation: Pardon and Amnesty of Confederates in Tennessee by Kathleen Zebley Liulevicius Katharine Dahlstrand (bio) Rebel Salvation: Pardon and Amnesty of Confederates in Tennessee. By Kathleen Zebley Liulevicius. ( Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2021. Pp. 368. Cloth, $50.00.) In a time when the very idea of pardon and amnesty makes national headlines, Kathleen Zebley Liulevicius has offered readers a specialized history on the topic with Rebel Salvation. As the first two Reconstruction presidents navigated the complexities of stitching back together a fractured nation, Liulevicius illuminates that the "'healing' came too fast" (6). The author examines Andrew Johnson's program of pardon and amnesty announced on May 29, 1865, in which he exonerated most white southerners and then outlined fourteen classes of people who would require individual pardon via application to the president. After providing a clear definition of who required direct solicitation of amnesty, Liulevicius offers [End Page 131] a broad history of antebellum Tennessee, the focus of her study, and sets the stage for an application process that demanded acknowledgment of wrongdoing, promises of future loyalty, and recollections of previous instances of allegiance to the United States. As Liulevicius tackles the means by which white southerners found absolution for treason, her more limited examination of the presidential ideologies that informed the process takes a backseat to an exploration of the power of community. She provides overwhelming evidence of the supplemental letters of support sent alongside applicants' oaths of loyalty and formal applications for amnesty and pardon. While the letters were never formally required, the author points out that the sheer volume of them suggests that their inclusion helped secure presidential pardons. There is irony in the title of chapter 3, "Confederate Panjandrums," and Liulevicius makes it clear that the political godheads of Tennessee's brief attempt at secession claimed to be victims of popular opinion, easily swayed by the fever of treason. Offices were filled out of a sense of obligation to the communities in which these men lived, reluctantly and without any real dedication to the secessionist cause. This reluctance never quite translated to a firm commitment to the principles of preserving the Union; nevertheless, many of the men who applied for pardon felt entitled to total forgiveness. Reading through this chapter, readers will surely lament that this ragged war seemed to spring into existence at the fault of no specific white southern man, but rather out of a general sense of the white southern will of anonymous others. Applicants simultaneously claimed to be men of powerful authority and toothless supplicants to secessionist passions. Local officeholders seeking amnesty and pardon portrayed their service as one of continuing necessary community functions. As with the political power brokers, these men focused on the influence of neighbors when accepting a position in the Rebel government. Strikingly, however, these former Rebel functionaries highlighted how their service as postmasters and civil servants often also served the interests of the U.S. government and Federal armies. Youthful indiscretion seemed to play a large role in choosing disunion, but Liulevicius aptly highlights the rare application that relied on a defense of slavery. Harder to defend were the actions of former Rebel officers. Former senior military officers, U.S. soldiers and sailors who had defected to fight for the Confederacy, and Rebels educated and trained at the expense of U.S. military service academies had to provide compelling narratives defending their secession and wartime actions. Former Confederate commanders appealed to the president by highlighting their "civilized, gentlemanly warfare" and "benevolent treatment of Unionists," ignoring the moments they ordered their troops to fire [End Page 132] deadly weapons at U.S. soldiers and sailors (127). In the last chapter, the author examines the pardon applications of the planter elite, but there seems to be a tendency to accept the answers provided in the Tennessee Civil War Veterans Questionnaire at face value with little scrutiny of social and cultural signposts under which the questionnaire was created. Still, Liulevicius reveals an amnesty system that erred on the side of forgiveness for a majority of the applicants, in which toothless former Rebels were washed free of their traitorous sins, given sharpened teeth, and allowed renewed...