The Portland daily press., 1867-01-11

yrl..s. .i,1fi q thousand yaSee o. nHHnScriDI d.
matter relative 10 .he nnidei oi ,ne .nfee Maine
soldiers il, south Carolina III October, 1885,
The dorunents embrace the entire prooe d;nes
ttfnre t1a military commission bV which .be
ALLEGED nurderers were tried, large number
oil petitions and memorials aud letters address
ed to the Iresiden. ia hehalfof fha .oudemaed
prisoners; the record OF the proceedings conse-
qnent upon the refusal Of General s:ckles to
obey tue writ ofh0to0s ts,rtis issued bv :. South
carolina judge; ihe yariols orders oil the Pres
idet, IN t!,,: Case; the correspondence relative
To The hnal release of the prisoners from Fort
Delaware on writ issued by Justice Hall,
and other details The papers show that all
four of The prisoners were found guilty, that
James G. Reyes and T. G. Showers Were sem
fenced to death, and Robert Reyes and Elisha
New Hampshire. The death sentenced was
to have been executed at castle Pickney,
Charleston Hsrbor, April 81, 1866, but on the
9th of April General Sckles, by order OF the
President, directed the suspension OF the SEN
tence till further orders.
The other parties remained ia confinement
at that point all through the spring anu sum
mer and at once petitions began To pour IN
praying the President to set ASIDE the SEN
tence entirely and allow the prisoners to be
discharged or at least 10 order their trial be-
fore civil tribunal. Some OF these petitions
bear the names of hundreds Of women. The
President was appealed TO as the Saviour OF
the country and the true friend Of the South:
meetings were held in various parts of South
Carolina and Georgia, at which resolutions of
Indignation, sympathy and entreaty were PASS
ed; the influence of the Masonic order was
brought to bear upon the Executive in behalf
of Showers and Reyes; Governor Orr said they
were gentlemen OF highest responsibility, and
that their execution would be hOrrid crime,
nothing less than judicial murder; Ex-Gov-
ernor Joseph Brown OF Georgia, said he could
not believe for moment that Showers was a
murderer, and he implored the President to
step between him and the vengeance of the
commission; Mr.. Bonham, ex-Representatiye
in Congress from South Carolina, was conf
dent neither OF these gentlemen was guilty as
charged, and the President could not do less
than give them q trial in the civil courts; an
other South Caroinlan declared ia most i'm
passioned manner that no Charleston Jury
would have found them guilty on the evidence.
before the commission; another denounced
the court for allowing freedmen to testify and
declared that the result of this trial proved
the incapacty of the negro to tell the truth;
the rebel General q. r. Smith writes to the
| President as his dear friend" and endorses
Keyes and Showers as true men and Southern
! gentlemen, who could not be guilty Of the
| crime with which they were charged; Mrs.
| Showers wrote long letter in her husbands
behalf; Herschel V.J ohnson earnestly implor-
ed the executive clemency,. and urged that the
men be turned over to the courts; Alex. III.
| Stephens is satisfied that Showers could not
| have done this deed, and commends the case to
the special attention of the President; finally,
| VIM. ID. Prescott comes up here with forty
| page document Endorsed by Gov. Orr, General
| Conner and others, and labors with the Ex-
| ecutive for two or three days.
The result Of all this effort Joined with the
representations OF the counsel whose name
does not appear in these papers, was that On
the 23d Of July, 1866, the President issued an
order committing the sentence of Reyes and
| Showers to imprisonment for life, and designate
ing the Tortugas as the place Of confinement
for all four of the prisoners. A week later,
I,1xr tk,on .,,I Il.
| of War, as has been stated in some of the pa
| pers, issued a second ORDER changing the place
of confinement from Tortugas to Fort Della
/ ware.
There is nothing in the correspondence to
show why this change was made. The prison
ers were removed from Charleston Harbor to
Fort Delaware i'll the latter part of August.
Nothing more is heard of them till the 9th
of last November, when Captain Howard,
commanding at Fort Fort Delaware, notifies
| Adjutant-General Thomas of the War De-
| partment that he has been served with writ
Of kdbeas corpus in favor of the four men
which is returnable ON November "a He adds
these are the four men in whose case General
| Sickles refused to obey similar writ in
Charleston. General Townsend writes on the
following day by order of the Secretary OF War
and directs Captain Howard to confer with
| the District-AttOrney of Delaware, who has
received instructions from the Attorney Gen
eral IN relation to the writ, and will make pro-
| per return thereon. On the same day General
Townsend sent to the District-Attorney copies
| of all papers in the War Department which
bear upon the case, and asked him to call on
| the Secretar, of War for further aid if neces-
sary. On the 18th of November the District
Attorney asked General Townsend for author
ity showing that these men We're rightfully
tried before q military commission. On the
14th, the ge-Advocate-Gene Mr. Holt,
replied at omelength, citing law for the course
| pursued by the military, and concluded by say
ing-"It Z. held that the status of war contin-
ued to exist in the rebel S States, and therefore
the prisoners were properly under military .ju-
| risdiction until peace was proclaimed by com
i petent political authority through the Presi-
1en1"
r. l.~5,seo-d -leaas 'srith q grief letter from
capt. Howard, az der date OF Eovembe. ii,
| 1866, IN which be says the prisoners were that
day discharged from custody on the writ of
hd6eas corpus Issued by Justice Hall Singu-
larly enough, as it appears, the return of the
District-AttOrnoy to the writ is not given,
neither are the instructions to him from the
\ Attorney-General furnished. 1t is probable
that another effors viii he made to get these
I and two or three other important docUme nts
bearing upon the matter.-Dispotch to Boston
Advertiser.