CH 11, 1865

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A Proclamation

Whereas, the twenty-first section of the act of Congress, approved on the
3d instant, entitled "An Act to amend the several acts heretofore passed
to provide for the enrolling and calling out the national forces and for
other purposes," requires that in addition to the other lawful penalties
of the crime of desertion from the military or naval service, all persons
who have deserted the military or naval service of the United States who
shall not return to said service or report themselves to a provost-marshal
within sixty days after the proclamation hereinafter mentioned, shall
be deemed and taken to have voluntarily relinquished and forfeited their
citizenship and their right to become citizens, and such deserters shall
be forever incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under the
United States, or of exercising any rights of citizens thereof; and all
persons who shall hereafter desert the military or naval service, and all
persons who, being duly enrolled, shall depart the jurisdiction of the
district in which they are enrolled, or go beyond the limits of the United
States with intent to avoid any draft into the military or naval service
duly ordered, shall be liable to the penalties of this section; and the
President is hereby authorized and required forthwith, on the passage of
this act, to issue his proclamation setting forth the provisions of this
section, in which proclamation the President is requested to notify all
deserters returning within sixty days as aforesaid that they shall be
pardoned on condition of returning to their regiments and companies, or to
such other organizations as they may be assigned to, until they shall have
served for a period of time equal to their original term of enlistment:

Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the
United States, do issue this my proclamation as required by said act,
ordering and requiring all deserters to return to their proper posts; and
I do hereby notify them that all deserters who shall within sixty days
from the date of this proclamation, viz., on or before the 10th day of
May, 1865, return to service or report themselves to a provost-marshal,
shall be pardoned on condition that they return to their regiments or
companies or to such other organization as they may be assigned to, and
serve the remainder of their original terms of enlistment, an