True Crime
No period in history has been free of crime, but the brutal and chaotic conditions Kentuckians faced during the Civil War may have caused the Commonwealth’s crime rate to increase.
Courts overflowed with cases, overwhelmed local justice systems could not keep up, and many people reached out to the governor as a last lifeline. More than half of each governor’s wartime correspondence dealt with pardon requests and appeals to remit (reduce) fines and prison sentences. Victims turned to the governor for help, but so did people who had committed a crime because of the hard choices the war forced them to make.
The documents for this theme show the range of requests Civil War-era governors received.
Grade Levels & Kentucky Teaching Standards
5th Grade
5.I.UE.2
8th grade
8. I.UE.1
High School
HS.C.1.UE.3
Primary Sources
Murder of Dr. Norwood
Petitions to the Governor
Secondary Sources
Mitchel P. Roth, “Crime and Criminal Justice in the Civil War era (1856–1875),” A History of Crime and the American Criminal Justice System, 3rd ed. (Routledge, 2018).
Amy Louise Wood, and University of Mississippi. Center for the Study of Southern Culture. 2011. Violence. The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, V. 19. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Stuart W. Sanders, Murder on the Ohio Belle (University Press of Kentucky, 2020).
Guénaël Mettraux, “A Little-known Case from the American Civil War: The War Crimes Trial of Major General John H. Gee,” Journal of International Criminal Justice, 8, no. 4 (Sept. 2010): 1059–1068.
Special Issue: “Irregular Violence and Trauma in Civil War Kentucky.” The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 116, no. 2 (Spring 2018).
“Myth: Henry Wirz was the only person tried for war crimes in the Civil War,” National Park Service: Andersonville, https://www.nps.gov/ande/learn/historyculture/wirztribunal.htm?fullweb=1.
Thomas Cutrer, “Military Executions during the Civil War,” Virginia Humanities: Encyclopedia Virginia, https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/military-executions-during-the-civil-war/.
Podcast Ep.: “The Age of Crime! Civil War Veterans and Crime in America,” by Sarah Handley-Cousins, Dig: A History Podcast, https://digpodcast.org/2018/08/04/civil-war-veterans-crime/.
Framing Questions
- How did crime change over the course of the Civil War in Kentucky?
- Were Governors more willing to pardon, remit, or grant a respite? Why or why not?
- Do you think race and gender played a role in the decisions handed down by the governor? Explain why or why not.
Terms for discussion
Activity
MURDER!
As Governor would you issue a warrant for Jim Brown? Why or Why not? (Use a T-Chart to write down your conclusions)