Biography
John Letcher was a Virginia lawyer, newspaper editor, congressman, and the state’s governor during the first three years of the American Civil War. Although he initially resisted secession, after Virginia left the Union he supported the Confederate government and directed the mobilization of Virginia’s military personnel and material resources.
Following the collapse of the Confederacy, Union cavalry arrested Letcher at Lexington, Virginia, on May 20, 1865, under an order from General Ulysses S. Grant identifying him as a “particularly obnoxious” political leader. He was taken to Washington, D.C., and confined beginning May 24 in Carroll Prison, an annex of the Old Capitol military prison, where he shared a cell with Zebulon Vance, the wartime governor of North Carolina, who had been delivered there four days earlier.
No formal criminal charge appears to have been prosecuted against him. While imprisoned, Letcher wrote on June 29 that he did not know precisely why he had been arrested or when he would be released. He was paroled on July 10, 1865, after approximately fifty-one days in federal custody. The threat of prosecution for treason continued until President Andrew Johnson granted him a full pardon on January 15, 1867.
After returning to Lexington, Letcher resumed practicing law. He served on the Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors and later represented Rockbridge County in the Virginia House of Delegates. He died in Lexington on January 26, 1884.
