NOTE: Joseph Wells Civil War petition links to images of the three pages of the Joseph Wells petition.

During the Civil War, the southeast Kentucky counties were almost a no man's land with the residents under constant threat of the seizure of the crops, livestock and even their men by both Union and Confederate troops under orders to obtain provisions, arms and horses for the soldiers. In these instances there were generally promises to pay for the goods, usually in the form of vouchers which were to be paid at a later date by the Union or Confederate government.

After the war when many citizens found themselves unreimbursed for their losses to the troops, particularly to the Rebels, they took the individuals to court for damages. Thus in some counties ex-soldiers found themselves on trial for robbery or murder. Many of these individuals petitioned Thomas E. Bramlett, Governor of Kentucky, for pardons or for a remittance of the judgements against them pleading wartime circumstances.

One such petition was made by Joseph Wells. Wells was born about 1829. In 1856 in Letcher County, he married Sarah Sturgill, a native of Ashe County, N.C. Among their children were Mary, Rebecca Jane, Elizabeth, William J., Preston H., Peggy, Nancy and Diana.

Joseph Wells' petition to the Governor reads as follows: "Your petitioner would represent to this Excellancy that he stands indicted in the Letcher Circuit Court charged with the offense of robbery. He states that he was a United States soldier at the time the offense was committed and that the Regiment to which he belonged was then at Irvine, Kentucky.

"That himself and fifteen more men were detached and ordered to Letcher County to arrest some soldiers that had deserted the regiment and supposed to have gone to the county. And while upon the expedition and in the County of Letcher your petitioner's horse was taken by some rebellious outlaws that then ranged without the slightest restraint in the county.

"That he was left alone and afoot in one of the worst Rebel neighborhoods then known and Caudill's men reported to be in pursuit of them. That Joseph Gilley being a declared and an enthusiastic friend of the Rebels and it being the first and only means by which your petitioner could save himself from the clutches of the Enemy, he took a horse for said Gilley's possession. That the horse he took from Gilley was branded with the letters C.S.

"That he took the horse to his regiment and delivered him to Major Treadway who ordered to horse to be sold. That the witnesses by whom the petitioner could prove the foregoing facts have some of them died or been killed by the enemy and some of them so far from Letcher courthouse that he has been unable to get them in attendance upon the court. And believes as the nearest of them lives in Tennessee it will be impossible to ever get this evidence in the case. Wherefor you humble petitioner would respectfully ask of his Excellency Thomas E. Bramlett of the State of Kentucky to pardon him of the offense of robbing Joseph Gilley of his horse for which he stand indicted in the Letcher Circuit Court."

The petition is signed by about three dozen men, many of them Letcher County officials and, in March of 1867, Governor Bramlett pardoned Joseph Wells. That same month he pardoned several other southeast Kentucky individuals including John Morgan, indicted for the horsestealing in Clay County, and Jonathan Bailey for robbery and David Blevins for murder, both indicted in Harlan County.

Two months previously in January of 1867, Bramlett had pardoned a number of others under indictment in Harlan County. These were Stephen Causey for bigamy, William Middleton for three cases of robbery, Benjamin Middleton for two cases of robbery and on of larceny, David Middleton for two cases of robbery and William P. Lankford, Ed Bailey, George B. Howard and Calvin Unthank, all under indictment for robbery. He also pardoned James Bowman who had been convicted of robbery in the Harlan court and sentenced to three years in the state penitentiary.

A few months earlier, in November 1866, Bramlett had pardoned Calvin Unthank's brother John Milton Unthanks who had been indicted for horsestealing in the Knox County Circuit court