Alexander Caldwell
The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 3 December 1864, page 2
NEWPORT NEWS
CAMPBELL CIRCUIT COURT-The following indictments were reported by
the Grand Jury, at the recent term of this court.
Alexander Caldwell, robbery, taking a horse from Asa Townsley.
ACQUITTED-Alexander Caldwell, was tried in the Campbell Circuit Court, at its present term, on the charge of horse stealing and acquitted. The defendant plead and relied on the amnesty oath, which he had taken, in bar of the prosecution to which the Commonwealth demurred. The Court ruled that the President of the United States had authority to pardon offenses against the Constitution and Laws of the Federal Government, but not against those of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Demurrer sustained.
The defendant also plead and relied on the plea of not guilty, and on the trial proved that he was at the time of taking the horse of Jones, a soldier in the military service of the so called Confederate States, and under the command of Major Cameron, of the C. S. army, and that he was, by his commanding officer, specially detached with a command, under orders to seize and capture Jones and others, and also to seize and hand over to the nearest Confederate military post, horses and other war material, and that accordingly defendant seized the horse, in the the indictment mentioned and handing ti over to the Confederate army under Gen. Heth, near Covington Ky. September 14, 1862, the morning after the seizure was made.
The Court in substance instructed the Jury that as the President of the United States had recognized the Confederate soldier as belligerent, and entitled, as such, to the laws and immunities of war, that if the Jury believed the foregoing facts in evidence to be true, and that the horse was taken and captured by the defendant, as a soldier, and by authority, for military purposes and not otherwise, it was not a felony, and the Jury should find the defendant not guilty.
After being out about ten minutes the Jury returned a verdict of not guilty.