History of Western Maryland. J. Thomas Scharf
and in denouncing the crime of which he was the victim.
The excited state of feeling growing out of the assassination of the President and the return of Confederate paroled prisoners led in Baltimore and elsewhere to intemperate measures, and it was therefore considered desirable to define the legal status and rights of those who had recently been serving in the armies of the Confederacy. At the request of the War Department, Attorney-General Speed, on the 24th of April, 1865, gave an opinion in regard to certain paroled Confederate prisoners whose homes before the war had been in the States north of the Potomac. By the terms of the agreement entered into by Gens. Grant and Lee, all the officers and men of Lee's army were to be allowed to return to their homes, and were not to be disturbed by the United State authorities so long as they observed their parole and the laws in force at the place of their residence.
Attorney-General Speed, however, held that this agreement did not apply to Confederate soldiers from Maryland and other States north of the Potomac, and in accordance with this opinion Maj.-Gen. Wallace issued an order directing the commanding officers and provost-marshals in the Middle Department to arrest and bold in confinement all Confederate officers, soldiers, and citizens who had returned to their former homes to await exchange, and to report each case to headquarters for such disposition as might be directed by the government at Washington. In accordance with this order a large number of ex-Confederates were arrested " for coming into this department without authority," and upon taking the oath of allegiance were sent North, where they were tolerated. On the 18th of July, 1865, Gen. Winfield S. Hancock assumed command of the Middle Department, embracing the States of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, excepting the counties of Anne Arundel, Prince George, Calvert, Charles, and St. Mary's. On the 2nd of August, Gen. Hancock issued an order requiring " paroled prisoners of the late rebel armies who have not been pardoned by the President of the United States," upon arriving within the limits of the department, to report their presence and residence immediately to the nearest provost-marshal and register their names, and announcing that paroled prisoners non-residents of the department would not be allowed to remain in it without the sanction of the department commander or higher authority.
On the 12th of January, 1866, another military order was issued, in which it was announced that, —
" The provost-marshal's office will cease to exist in this command on the 31st of January. Brevet Brig.
Gen. John Woolley, United States Volunteers, provost-marshal, will take measures to close the books and records pertaining to his office upon that date, and turn them over to the adjutant-general of the department." In accordance with this order all the books, papers, and records of the office of the provost-marshal-general of the Middle Department of the Eighth Army Corps were turned over on the 31st of January, 1866, to Adam E. King, brevet colonel, adjutant-general of the Middle Military Department. The closing of the provost-marshal's department in Baltimore closed the reign of the military commanders in Maryland. President Johnson had, on June 23, 1865, rescinded the blockade proclamations issued April 15 and 17, 1861; on Aug. 29, 1865, he had removed further restrictions, and on the 1st of December following he annulled the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and finally, on the 2nd of April, 1866, formally announced by proclamation that the Rebellion had ended.
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