Patrick Donnelly to Beriah Magoffin

KYR-0001-020-0323.xml

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Accession Number

KYR-0001-020-0323

Document Genre

Petition

Repository

Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives

Collection

Office of the Governor, Beriah Magoffin: Governor's Official Correspondence File, Petitions for Pardons and Remissions, 1859-1862

Item Location

MG18-7- MG18-8

Place of Creation

Jefferson County, Kentucky

Date of Creation

n.d.

Dates Mentioned

1860-01

1858-12-25

Patrick Donnelly to Beriah Magoffin, n.d., Office of the Governor, Beriah Magoffin: Governor's Official Correspondence File, Petitions for Pardons and Remissions, 1859-1862, MG18-7- MG18-8, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, KY. Accessed via the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/KYR-0001-020-0323, (accessed December 22, 2024).

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To his Excellency B. Magoffin,
Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky:

Your Petitioner, Patrick Donnelly, would respectfully represent that at the January Term of the Jefferson Circuit Court, in the year 1860, he was tried upon an Indictment against him, for the Killing of [ ]Scott, and that he was found guilty of the crime of Manslaughter, and sentenced to the Jail and Penitentiary of this Commonwealth for the Term of Ten Years. --

Your Petitioner now prays your Excellency for a Pardon for the following causes:

1^st The true statement of the circumstances attending the unfortunate wounding did not, and could not be brought before the Jury. -- Your Petitioner is now a mere youth, about Eighteen years of age; the wounding occurred on Christmas day 1858. -- Your Petitioner and [ ] Scott were and always had been intimate and devoted personal friends; had been intimate as boys, and were at that time mere boys; they had never had a difficulty or an angry word, or thought between them. -- On that day they had, unfortunately, been together celebrating that festival in the usual manner by drinking, and being unaccustomed to the use of intoxicating liquors, they both became drunk
Even to insanity; a foolish quarrel, about some matter so trivial that your Petitioner has never been Enabled since to remember, Ensued, and the result of that quarrel was that your Petitioner, as it appeared, ~~stabbed~~ without any provocation, stabbed the deceased, with a pen Knife, in the thigh. -- Your Petitioner states that he has no distinct recollection of the unfortunate occurrence, but he does state, most solemnly, that at the time the wound was inflicted, and never before did he enteratin one particle of hostility to his deceased friend, and that he did not Know, until some time afterwards, that he had cut him, and that when informed of it he could not credit it. --

2^d Your Petitioner states that death from the wound was a mere accident. -- The Phemoral artery -- by an untoward accident -- happened to be severed, and the position of the parties showed that Your Petitioner had any and all chances to have inflicted a wound upon any portion of the body of the deceased which would have been necessarilyvital instead of a cut in the leg --

3^d Your Petitioner states that Scott lived for some days after the wounding, and, as was proven on the trial, said that he believed the wounding was accidental, and that he did not desire a prosecution against Petitioner. -- That there was no
ill feeling between them, and that he knew there was no intent to injure him. --

4^th Your Petitioner states that as an Expiation for the offense of drunkeness and its lamentable consequences, he has suffered confinement in the Jail of Jefferson County for many weary months; that he has been convicted as a felon and immersed in the walls of the Penitentiary since last January, and he most respectfully suggests that by all the principles of Justice, not to say Mercy, he has made atonement for his wrong. --

5^th. Your Petitioner states that he is yet a minor, too young to be deprived of all hopes to make reputation for himself, and perform services to his Country; that he has an aged mother, in a great measure dependant upon his labor for the comforts -- Even the necessaries -- of her declining life, and he feels that his offence, however disastrous to his future prospects, is not so great as to warrant any further term of imprisonment

Your Petitioner therefore for many reasons not Enumerated herein, as well as for the causes herein assigned, most respectfully and urgently begs your Excellency to give a favorable hearing to this Petition and grant a Pardon for the offence above named, and as in duty he will Ever pray &^c

To His Excellency the Govenor of Kentucky
Sir:

I am asked to join in the foregoing petition and to make you some statement about the case of the Petitioner: who has been indicted and convicted in the Jefferson Circuit Court for the Crime of Manslaughter I had an acquaintance with the facts: but, I was sick on the day of the Trial: and was not present. I think the Petition substantially embodies the facts as they were introduced on the examining trial:

I think the young man has suffered much. and I join in his petition

E S Craig atto for Commonwealth 7 Judicial District

I unite in the prayer of the foregoing petition, with pleasure.

P. B. Muir

I was during the sickness of Mr, Craig the prosecuting Atty. pro tem. in the tiral mentioned in the petition and join in the prayer.

Martin Bijur

We concur in the prayer for the reprieve of the Petitioner

Nat Wolfe
S N Hodges
Isaac Caldwell.

James Speed
Wm F Barret --
Joseph A Graves
B F Camp
Jno W, Barr

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