What happened during the american civil war?

Question

You know how Lincoln suspended habeus corpus and people were summarily thrown in jail? What happened to those people after the war, when habeus corpus was reinstated?

Answer 1

I'm not sure whether the *precise* question you're asking will be answered by it, but you may do well to check out the excellent re-examination of Lincoln's actual policies in this area in Mark Neely's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, *The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties* (1992)

The following published book description may help you get some idea:

" . . . showing just who was jailed and why, even as he explores the whole range of Lincoln's constitutional policies. Mark Neely depicts Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus as a well-intentioned attempt to deal with a floodtide of unforeseen events: the threat to Washington as Maryland flirted with secession, disintegrating public order in the border states, corruption among military contractors, the occupation of hostile Confederate territory, contraband trade with the South, and the outcry against the first draft in U.S. history. Drawing on letters from prisoners, records of military courts and federal prisons, memoirs, and federal archives, he paints a vivid picture of how Lincoln responded to these problems, how his policies were actually executed, and the virulent political debates that followed. Lincoln emerges from this account with this legendary statesmanship intact--mindful of political realities and prone to temper the sentences of military courts, concerned not with persecuting his opponents but with prosecuting the war efficiently. In addition, Neely explores the abuses of power under the regime of martial law: the routine torture of suspected deserters, widespread antisemitism among Union generals and officials, the common practice of seizing civilian hostages. He finds that though the system of military justice was flawed, it suffered less from merciless zeal, or political partisanship, than from inefficiency and the friction and complexities of modern war. Informed by a deep understanding of a unique period in American history, this incisive book takes a comprehensive look at the issues of civil liberties during Lincoln's administration, placing them firmly in the political context of the time."

Another Neely book that supplements this nicely is *Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism* (1999), which addresses the OTHER side of the myth. Based on the records of over four thousand Confederate military prisoners. He "undermines the common understanding that Jefferson Davis and the Confederates were scrupulous in their respect for constitutional rights while Lincoln and the Unionists regularly violated the rights of dissenters. Neely reveals for the first time the extent of repression of Unionists and other civilians in the Confederacy, and uncovers and marshals convincing evidence that Southerners were as ready as their Northern counterparts to give up civil liberties in response to the real or imagined threats of wartime."

Answer 2

Most were not kept throughout the war, but merely until they were no longer considered a threat. Yes, after the war all those held were released, but most were only kept for a period of time anyway.

Answer 3

i believe they were released /pardoned,in an act of brotherly reconciliation