Lambdin P. Milligan had been arrested in Indiana in 1864, along with three others, and charged with sedition and aiding the Confederacy.  A military commission had tried and found him and two of his companions guilty and sentenced them all to death.  Appeals based on the validity of the trial under habeus corpus and denial of a civilian trial had worked their way to the U.S. Supreme Court and the Court ruled "Ex Parte, Milligan" in his favor and ordered him and the others released. On this day, a week later, they left prison for good. (By John Osborne)

Lambdin P. Milligan had been arrested in Indiana in 1864, along with three others, and charged with sedition and aiding the Confederacy.  A military commission had tried and found him and two of his companions guilty and sentenced them all to death.  Appeals based on the validity of the trial under habeus corpus and denial of a civilian trial had worked their way to the U.S. Supreme Court and on this day the Court ruled "Ex Parte, Milligan" in his favor and ordered him and the others released. (By John Osborne)

George E. Pickett of Gettysburg fame had been accused of the mass execution at Kinston, North Carolina of  twenty-two Union soldiers suspected of deserting the Confederate Army.  A board of inquiry had recently backed this finding of war crimes and Pickett, living in Canada, contacted his friend U.S. Grant seeking help.  Grant wrote to the President on his behalf and ordered that his arrest be only made on Johnson's or Secretary Stanton's express orders.  Pickett was never arrested or charged.  (By John Osborne)

Major John H. Gee, the former commander of Salisbury Prison in North Carolina, where a quarter of the Union prisoners imprisoned there died, went on trial before a U.S. military commission for war crimes.  His trial spanned four months, heard a hundred witnesses, and featured legal maneuverings that included a writ of habeas corpus against Union General T.H. Ruger. Gee was acquitted on all charges in mid-July 1866. (By John Osborne)