Except maybe not exactly
He was The Legal Genealogist‘s cousin, that David Davenport of North Carolina.
In one line, a first cousin four times removed. In another, a second cousin five times removed. Descended from a Baker cousin and surrounded by Baker and Davenport and Wiseman kin, he was born and married and lived and died in western North Carolina.1
And he’s the one I mentioned yesterday in talking about the Confederate amnesty records. The one who served as postmaster of Spruce Pine, North Carolina, during the Civil War and whose service as a postmaster meant he had to apply for a special Presidential pardon to regain all of his rights after the war ended.2
David’s application is a masterpiece:
The petition of David Davenport a citizen of Mitchell County, State of North Carolina aged forty six years, by occupation a farmer, respectfully Showeth unto your Excellency, That he held the Office of Post Master at Spruce Pine Post Office in said County, under the so called Confederate States. The holding of which office, according to your Excellency’s proclamation, deprives him of the privilege of taking the Oath of Amnesty.
Your petitioner would further show that he did not accept said office for the purposes of aiding the rebellion; but that he accepted it to keep out of the rebel army and for no other purpose.
Your petitioner would further show that he has ever been a Union man and opposed to the rebellion, that he rejoices at the restoration of the Union that it is his desire and ever has been to live a loyal and faithful citizen of the United States.
Your petitioner does therefore pray that Your Excellency will duly consider his case and he humbly asks Executive Clemency.
Your petitioner as in duty bound ever prays.
/s/ David Davenport3
And, of course, it worked.
On the 9th of November 1865, President Andrew Johnson issued a full pardon and amnesty to David, “for all offenses by him committed, arising from participation, direct or implied, in the said rebellion.”4
By then my cousin had already signed the required oath — as you see here — and all was hunky dory again between David and the Union.
Of course, the records suggest that David may have been just a wee bit more involved with the Confederacy than he suggested. The civilian files of the Confederacy contain a voucher and receipt for eight head of beef cattle he supplied to the Confederate Quartermaster in 1862.5
And another for 43 barrels of corn later that year.6
And another for the hire of a six mule team and driver for 20 days in August 1862 transporting stores from Port Gibson MS to Port Hudson LA.7
And one for a sorrel horse in 1863.8
And another 34 bushels of corn and 1895 pounds of fodder in April 1863.9
Oh, and another for 530 pounds of fodder in 1864.10
Ever a Union man, right, David?
Except … maybe … not exactly…
SOURCES
- See generally John Scott Davenport, “Five-Generations Identified from the Pamunkey Family Patriarch, Namely Davis Davenport of King William County,” PDF, pp. 19, 28, in The Pamunkey Davenport Papers: The Saga of the Virginia Davenports Who Had Their Beginnings in or near Pamunkey Neck, CD-ROM (Charles Town, W.Va.: Pamunkey Davenport Family Association, 2009). See also Davenport Cemetery, Mitchell County, North Carolina, David Davenport marker and memorial; digital image, Find A Grave (http://findagrave.com : accessed 8 Dec 2017). ↩
- See Judy G. Russell, “Begging your pardon,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 8 Dec 2017 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 9 Dec 2017). ↩
- U.S. National Archives, Case Files of Applications from Former Confederates for Presidential Pardons (“Amnesty Papers”), 1865-67, entry for David Davenport of North Carolina, microfilm publication M1003, roll 38, (Washington, D.C. : NARA, 1977); digital images, Fold3.com (https://www.fold3.com/i : accessed 7 Dec 2017). ↩
- Pardon, David Davenport of North Carolina, 9 November 1865, “Pardons Under Amnesty Proclamations, compiled 1865–1869,” Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 Dec 2017), citing General Records of the Department of State, 1763–2002, Record Group 59, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C. ↩
- U.S. National Archives, Confederate Papers Relating to Citizens or Business Firms, compiled 1874 – 1899, documenting the period 1861 – 1865, voucher to David Davenport, North Carolina, 10 June 1862, microfilm publication (Washington, D.C. : National Archives & Records Service, 1982); digital images, Fold3.com (https://www.fold3.com/ : accessed 7 Dec 2017). ↩
- Ibid., 5 Aug 1862. ↩
- Ibid., 31 Dec 1861. ↩
- Ibid., 5 Jan 1863. ↩
- Ibid., 22 Apr 1863. ↩
- Ibid., 3 Sep 1864. ↩
Those contributions to the Confederate cause may or may not have been totally voluntary.
Once, maybe not voluntary. Twice, even. Three, four, five times plus a team and driver in another state? Come on, now.
You need more evidence than that to prove this thesis one way or the other. There was much coercion that went on in subtle and not so subtle ways.
Subtle coercion, for sure. But at some point assistance crosses the line from coercion to cooperation. I don’t know where the line is, exactly — despite what my nieces and nephews say about my age, I wasn’t there 🙂 — but there’s certainly enough to put this into the “maybe not so much a loyal Union man” category.
From yesterday’s blog, I have a question. Did these amnesties prevent these men from getting state-sponsored confederate pensions?
Not that I’m aware of. Each state had its own rules for who was eligible and who wasn’t, but I haven’t seen a single statute where acceptance of amnesty or a pardon was an issue.
Well, I took a look at Mitchell County. I see that it is in the western part of the state, up in the mountains. A quick and dirty search revealed that the northern part of Mitchell county was a Unionist hotbed. I know from other research that I’ve done that the mountain regions of western North Carolina, northern Georgia, northern Alabama, western Virginia and eastern Tennessee had a lot of unionist sentiment. One interesting thing to look at is how those counties voted on secession referendums and ordinances.
I remember a few years ago when I was in Raleigh they had a nice display about Unionist in North Carolina. The heaviest concentrations were in those western counties.
Now, this doesn’t mean your man was a Unionist, but it does show the environment in which he lived. Perhaps, he was one of those who changed his allegiance depending who was winning at the time, or how the political winds of local politics were blowing.
You man could have been a died in the wool Confederate, who lied about it to get his amnesty. Or, he might have been a Union spy, who had to make it look like he was a “true believer” in the Confederate cause. Or, somewhere in between these two extremes. All I’m saying is that based on your documents, you don’t have enough information to say definitively one way or the other.
I think we’re saying the same thing, in the long run. My point was his assertion that he was ever a Union man has to be taken not just with a grain of salt but with a whole salt lick — looking all the entirety of the record and not just his petition for a pardon. His months and months of supplying materials and men to the Confederacy have to be factored in as well.
Yes, I agree those documents have to be factored in. And, on their face they make a strong case. I just think that, as Paul Harvey used to say, things might look different if you knew, “the rest of the story”! The emphasis here is on the word “might.” Last year I read several books dealing with southern unionism and one factor that ran through all these tomes was the deception practiced by Unionists to hide their true feelings from Confederate authorities. Also, one book, about northern Alabama, listed occupations often desired by Unionists was that of postmaster, because it was one of jobs that made a person exempt from the CSA draft.
This sounds sooo much like the Revolutionary War in New Jersey where, if the truth were known, I suspect a great many of the residents would have preferred to have simply been left alone by both sides. One wonders how many of the residents ever collected what they were owed according to those vouchers handed out by the Continental army. The British didn’t even bother with vouchers, they just helped themselves to whatever they wanted.
Westchester County, NY was even worse. That became a no man’s land where neighbor fought neighbor, brother fought brother, and scorched earth was the rule. I expect that may have happened during the Civil War as well, especially places like Kansas and Missouri which had already seen violence before the south seceded.