Beschreibung:

ALS, 1pp, 5 x 8", Washington: 9 January 1863, Executive Mansion printed stationery. In full: It is said that William S. Pryor, of New-Castle, Henry Co. Ky. and J. O'Hara, of Covington, Ky. were imprisoned for a while, at Camp Chase, and are now at Cincinnati, on parole, without permission to leave the State of Ohio. Let their parole stand, but allow them to go at large generally. When you shall have done this, notify me of it. Yours truly, A. Lincoln. Below in left margin, Will execute the foregoing order. E M Stanton. Included is a Library of Congress copy of a memorandum in their collection, also dated 9 Jan. on Executive Mansion stationery: Today Mr. Senator Powell calls and demands the unconditional release William S. Pryor, of New Castle, Henry Co. Ky, J. O'Hara, of Covington, Ky, who have been imprisoned at Camp Chase & are now on parol at Cincinnati, not allowed to go to Kentucky - Col. Thomas L. Jones has a similar case except he has the previleges [sic] of Newport. The Library of Congress notes that nothing more is known of the Pryor-O'Hara cases, but the recommendation was for the release of Jones the next month after he signed an oath of allegiance. Pryor apparently did return to Kentucky. O'Hara returned to Kentucky as well, and he was elected judge of the circuit court there in 1868. He held this position until 1874, when he decided to go back to practicing law. The letter and a copy of LOC letter along with a photograph of Lincoln are housed in a handsome tri-part blue morocco folder in a custom cloth slipcase. Although the exact circumstances of the arrests of William Pryor and James O'Hara are not known, a family article implies that Pryor's arrest was the result of his Southern sympathies (www.fiskefamily.com/fiskacetics/). He lost his father while very young, and the family suffered hardship with the loss of its "breadwinner." Will showed unusual promise in school, however, and was apprenticed in his uncle's law firm. The uncle, or his step-father, his mother having remarried sometime later, or someone in the firm had connections, since the Kentucky legislature passed a special law allowing Pryor to practice law before the age of 21. He became a successful lawyer and influential member of the New Castle community and beyond. Before the Civil War, reportedly Pryor made speeches against secession, realizing it would lead to bloodshed, but War came anyway. Many Southern sympathizers in border states such as Kentucky were imprisoned on the flimsiest charges. About the same time, Union supporters were also levying fines against Confederate supporters in these border areas, such as Kentucky and Missouri, and nominally using the money to support the "Unionist victims of Southern guerrilla actions." On 31 Jan. and again in mid-Feb., just after "demanding" that Lincoln intercede in the Pryor-O'Hara case, Powell likewise demanded that Lincoln order the return of these "fines" to those who had been charged by members of the 65th and 91st Indiana Vols. Lincoln had long been concerned about the potential abuse of this "system of reparations," and so ordered that they be refunded. If Pryor had not been a Southern sympathizer before his imprisonment (and he seems to have only been opposed to the secession), he seems to have been one afterward. In the summer of 1863, John Hunt Morgan and several hundred of his "raiders" were finally captured and imprisoned in Federal camps near Chicago and Columbus. Morgan himself was confined in the Ohio Penitentiary. When Morgan escaped in November, he made his way to Kentucky (by way of Cincinnati), and was sheltered for a while in Pryor's home before Pryor helped him escape to Tennessee to raise another guerrilla unit. Rumors began reaching Pryor that Union forces suspected his involvement in Morgan's escape, and were coming to arrest him again. So he made his way to Detroit, and thence to Canada. He later sent for his wife and family, and they remained with our northern neighbors until