of Claims. There are a few letters from Presidents Lincoln and Johnson, and some referred letters bearing Presidential endorsements. Letters from judges, district attorneys, marshals, clerks of court, and State officials are arranged by State or Territory. Communications from private citizens form a smaller segment of the file. The letters referred by the President's office, which originated in both States and Territories, are resignations, acceptances, recommendations and testimonials for appointments, representations regarding proposed legislation, and letters and petitions regarding Territorial problems. There are letters, reports, and other papers pertaining to California land claims. Still other materials consist of drafts and copies of letters sent and of opinions; accounting records such as invoices, receipts, orders for payment, statements, and requests for warrants; contracts for the employment of special attorneys and legal counsel; oaths of office; and administrative orders. Some of these papers relate to the regular business of the Attorney General's Office, such as the prosecution of land cases, the rendering of opinions, judicial affairs, claims, Territorial affairs, and pardons. Others concern legal problems incidental to the war, such as those concerning the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, military arrest, political prisoners, commerce with the South, trials of crews of Confederate privateers, the slave trade, loyalty oaths, confiscation cases, treason cases, Copperheads, the blockade, fugitive slaves, freedmen, the administration of the draft law, prize cases involving vessels captured attempting to run the blockade, the prosecution of Jefferson Davis, and pardons of ex-Confederates. A register of letters received is of some aid to the researcher. The legal opinions rendered during the war by the Attorney General to the President and heads of departments are recorded in parts of two volumes. The Government's greatly expanded activities, its adoption of measures of questionable legality, and the enactment of much new legislation resulted in requests for opinions on many diverse subjects. Numerous routine opinions were submitted on such matters as accounts, appointments, claims, contracts, compensation, the duties of Government officials, fees, and pay. Opinions arising from wartime activities concerned the arrest of paroled "rebels," bounties to troops, captures of steamers, the distribution of prize money, the pardoning and other powers of the President, passports, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, volunteer naval forces, captured property, running the blockade from ports of the United States, the retirement of naval officers, and the admission of West Virginia. An act of Mar. 3, 1865 (13 Stat. 514), authorized the Attorney General to employ an editor to prepare for publication the opinions issued after Mar. 1857 and to make a contract with a publisher. The opinions thus issued constitute a contribution to American law and are useful also for historical research. The Attorney General had been required by a joint resolution of Sept. 11, 1841 (5 Stat. 468), to examine and report on the validity of U. S. title to land for armories, arsenals, forts or fortifications, navy yards, customhouses, lighthouses, and other public buildings. Thenceforth no public money was paid for land until the Attorney General had issued a favorable opinion as to the title. The title opinions, far fewer than the opinions on questions of law, were entered in a separate volume; only a few of them were published. Department of Justice, Official Opinions of the Attorneys General of the United States. [1791-date] (Washington, 1852-date). Volumes 10 and 11, Jan. 1861-Dec. 1865, edited by J. Hubley Ashton, comprise 940 pages. This compilation does not include all the opinions in the manuscript volumes. Letters requesting opinions and occasional related documents are in the Attor ney General's Papers. A useful com- Since 1853 the Attorney General's Office had handled correspondence on the appointment of Federal judicial and legal officers: judges of the district courts, district attorneys, marshals, wardens and trustees of penal institutions, justices of the peace and notaries in the District of Columbia, and judges of special courts. There are separate files containing applications and recommendations for appointment to positions in the judicial districts, 1853-1903; the Attorney General's Office, 1850-1913; the Supreme Court, 1853-93; the Territories, 1857-97; and the Court of Claims, 1855-1901. Some of these letters were addressed to the Attorney General; others were sent to the President, heads of Government departments, Members of Congress, and other officials and were referred by them to the Attorney General. A few documents contain endorsements by the President, but most are merely referred by his secretary. The appointment records, arranged by State or Territory, also include testimonials, protests against appointments, resolutions, requests for removals, resignations, declinations, acceptances, and complaints against officeholders. Besides biographical data, issues of newspapers, and photographs, these records contain valuable information on conditions in the Territories and on military government in many areas. The appointments actually made may be found in other records: a register of appointments as district and Territorial judges, 1857-70; lists of judges, attorneys, marshals, and clerks of courts, 1862-86; a record of appointment of attorneys, 1857-70; and a list of judges appointed in the States, Territories, and the District of Columbia, 1857-75. An order book contains information on the employment of personnel in the Attorney General's Office and other data on office organization and operations. A register of nominations, 1864-1905, contains the names of men nominated as judges, district attorneys, marshals, justices of the peace, and members of the "levy court" in the District of Columbia and gives information on commissions issued. (Record copies of commissions for judicial appointments are in the General Records of the Department of State, Record Group 59. The appointment files for the Territories of Oregon and Washington are available on microfilm, M 198 and 224, and the accompanying pamphlets contain indexes to the names of applicants in those files.) One of the clerks in the Attorney General's Office was concerned with disbursements, but the only extant record is a daybook beginning in Mar. 1864. It contains a record of disbursements for salaries, contingent expenses, books, legal assistance and other expenses in the adjudication of California land claims, and the payment of special counsel. (Judiciary accounts were supervised during the war by the Secretary of the Interior; see elsewhere in this Guide.) Records in Other Custody. --A large collection of papers of Edward Bates, in the Missouri Historical Society at St. Louis, contains about 60 letters relating to his official duties as Attorney General during the war. The original of his diary, the printed version of which has been cited, is in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. PARDON CLERK About 1853 the Attorney General had taken over from the Secretary of State the function of handling petitions for pardon and making recommendations on them to the President, who under the Constitution has the sole authority to pardon offenses against the laws of the United States. The addition of this and other duties in the Office of the Attorney General resulted in the hiring of three temporary clerks and in the authorization by sec. 6 of an act of Aug. 4, 1854 (10 Stat. 572), of four permanent clerks one of whom undoubtedly did the paperwork on pardon cases. The position of pardon clerk was filled during the Civil War successively by John M. Cooper, Edmund C. Stedman, and Matthew F. Pleasants, but the earliest specific mention of this position was in an act of Mar. 3, 1865 (13 Stat. 516). Pleasants continued to fill the post, examining and arranging petitions and other documents relating to pardons for the consideration of the Attorney General. So many pardon applications were filed during 1865 that another regular clerk and two temporary ones were assigned to assist. Years later, by an act of Mar. 3, 1891 (26 Stat. 946), an "attorney in charge of pardons" was authorized, and the Civil War pardon records were transferred to him. Record Group 204. --Petitions or applications made by prisoners or by others on their behalf, with related documents, were accumulated in pardon case files, 1853-1946. The investigation of a case resulted in the gathering of letters of recommendation; character affidavits; correspondence; reports of district attorneys, trial judges, wardens, prison physicians, and Government agencies regarding the facts of the case and the conduct of the prisoner; the Attorney General's recommendation and report to the President; and the receipt for the warrant if issued. The files are arranged numerically in labeled jackets. Docket books, 1853-1923, in which cases are entered chronologically by date of petition and which are indexed by the name of the petitioner, give information on the history of each case. The docket books and related case files are indexed on cards (1853-89) arranged alphabetically by name of applicant. Lists of applications received, cases referred to district attorneys, applications refused, and pardons granted, for 1861-65, break down the chronological record of cases in the docket books and are useful for a study of the administration of the cases. Copies of requisitions for pardon warrants, 1861-81 (8 vols.), sent to the Secretary of State by the Attorney General contain the texts of pardon statements, which are duplicated in the pardon warrants issued by the Secretary. Since the alphabetical name indexes for the volumes of requisitions for 1861-71 (3 vols.) give the judicial districts, it is possible to ascertain illegal activities by locality. The last 5 volumes of requisitions contain alphabetical name indexes. The pardon records concern many crimes against the United States, including arson, counterfeiting, detaining and robbing the mail, embezzlement, engaging in the slave trade and service on board a slaver, failure to deposit public monies, forging applications for pensions and other claims, insulting an officer, keeping a bawdy house, manslaughter, murder, obstructing execution of process, perjury, persuading a witness not to testify, riot, smuggling, and violating the internal revenue law. More directly war-related cases covered by the pardon records include mutiny, bearing arms against the United States, aiding "rebels,' conspiracy against the Government, treason, enticing and aiding soldiers to desert, desertion, harboring deserters, opening recruiting stations for enlisting soldiers to fight against the United States, complicity in the attack on troops in Baltimore in Apr. 1861, and violation of the rules and customs of war. In the files are papers relating to many prominent Confederate officials and officers and to such notorious persons as Dr. Samuel A. Mudd. National Archives, Preliminary comp. by Gaiselle Kerner (Washing Inventory [No. 87] of the Records of ton, 1955). the Office of the Pardon Attorney, Record Group 94. --President Johnson's proclamation of May 29, 1865 (13 Stat. 758), granting amnesty and pardon to persons who had participated in the rebellion, required special applications for pardon from 14 excepted classes of persons, such as officers of the Confederate Government, U. S. judges who had resigned to aid the rebellion, the higher Confederate military or naval officers, former U. S. Army or Navy officers who had resigned to evade duty, Southern officers who had been educated at the U. S. Military or Naval Academy, Governors of Southern States, persons with property valued at more than $20,000, and persons who had violated the oath of amnesty taken under the proclamation of Dec. 8, 1863. Upon recommendation from the Attorney General, the President issued a warrant for a pardon; and, after the pardon had been filled out and signed by the Secretary of State and the President, it was forwarded to the Governor of the State concerned for transmittal to the petitioner. Applications submitted by persons in the excepted classes were filed by the pardon clerk in a separate file of amnesty papers and have been so maintained. The file includes also oaths of allegiance, recommendations and petitions for executive clemency, affidavits, reports of boards of investigation, correspondence, and acknowledgments of pardon warrants. The applications, received through the Governors of the Southern States or through officers in charge of military departments in the South, bear their endorsements. Some case files include originals or copies of documents relating to the applicants, such as appointments from the Confederate Government. The applications contain much personal information about the writers and their activities during the war; in the case of high ranking officers and officials the files are often of considerable interest. With the amnesty papers are lists compiled for use in handling the applications, such as lists of members of the Confederate Congress, Confederate Army and Navy officers, and prominent Confederate officials. Included also are a petition to the President for general amnesty, July 21, 1868, several petitions to the President for amnesty for Jefferson Davis, and some protests against pardoning him. The amnesty papers are arranged alphabetically by name under the various States. In 1894 these papers were transferred from the Department of Justice to the Record and Pension Office of the War Department. Jonathan T. Dorris, "Pardon Seekers and Brokers; a Sequel of Appomattox," Journal of Southern History, 1:276-292 (Aug. 1935). Related records are in the General Records of the Department of State (Record Group 59). A list of the names of persons of the 13th ex cepted class pardoned under the proc- officials and other adherents of the Serial 1293; and H. Ex. Doc. 32, 40 Cong., 1 sess., Serial 1311. The lists in these documents can be used as an index to the amnesty papers. ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR CLAIMS CASES Under an act of June 25, 1868 (15 Stat. 75), the Attorney General on July 1 took over the prosecution of suits on behalf of the Government in the U. S. Court of Claims. For 2 or 3 years the Assistant Attorney General in charge of Court of Claims cases appears to have been quartered with the court, but after the Department of Justice was created he and his several clerks had offices in that Department. Claims relating to the Civil War continued to be filed long after the war had ended. In 1891 another Assistant Attorney General was appointed to take charge of Indian depredation cases. In 1934 the function of defending claims against the Government was assigned to the Claims Division of the Justice Department, and in 1937 the Court of Claims Section was created in that Division. Some years later this section became part of the Civil Division, which handled the civil litigation of the Government. Record Group 205. --Although most of the records of the Court of Claims Section accumulated after the Civil War, many relate to claims that arose during the war. A volume of miscellaneous letters received, 1860-83, contains letters addressed to the Solicitor of the Court of Claims, the Attorney General, and the Assistant Attorney General about the gathering of evidence on claims. A file of letters received, 1888-1914, contains letters on the same subject and letters relating to different kinds of claims and to administrative matters. Outgoing letters on the above subjects are available in fair copies, 1872-1914, and in press copies, 1868-1912. In separate volumes are letters sent, 1906-7, asking information on claims of volunteer officers for extra pay and allowances for service as officers of the U. S. Army during the Civil War. A volume of reports from special attorneys in the field, 1899-1905, relates largely to Civil War claims that involved a determination of the claimants' loyalty. Incomplete but useful finding aids are lists of different types of cases, 1880-1915; an index to cases decided, 1883-1920; and a judgment index, 1885-1917. The Assistant Attorney General kept case files, dockets, and other reccords about different types of cases. The case files are not nearly so complete, especially for the early years, as those maintained by the Court of Claims, but they contain the same kinds of documents; and the dockets duplicate the information in the dockets maintained by the Court of Claims. (These are discussed in this Guide under the Court of Claims.) General-jurisdiction case records include case files, 1855-1945; dockets, 1855-1914; docket cards, 1903-38; dockets for cases relating to officers' pay and allowances, 1903-15; letters sent by Robert S. Hale, Special Counsel of the Treasury Department for the defense of suits in the Court of Claims, 1868-70; letters sent on cotton cases, 1870-75; and dockets for cotton cases, 1868-90. Congressionaljurisdiction case records include case files, 1884-1944; remanded case files, 1891; dockets, 1884-1914; a judgment docket, 1885-94; an index to claimants, 1891-1903; a record of cases, 1884-1912; a general docket for remanded cases, 1886-91; and a record of remanded cases, 1891. Departmentaljurisdiction case records include case files, 1883-1943; a docket, 1883-1913; docket cards, 1883-1941; and a record of cases, 1883-1911. Indian-depre |