We, H. E. Pierce and Emma Pierce, father and mother of Prvt. John W. Pierce, now confined at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, humbly petition your Honor to extend clemency to our son and pardon him for the offence for which he is now serving a sentence, and discharge him from said institution that he may return to his home and assist in cultivating our farm and to help us in our old age.

First, permit us to say that we are deeply sorrowful over the conduct of our son and feel greatly humiliated that our son should have consented to leave his company at any time without permission, and especially during active hostilities. We are told by our said son, however, that he was overpersuaded by some of his comrades and fell to the temptation to go back to his home; that said comrades of our son, as we are informed, paid for a suit of clothes for him, paid his railroad fare and eating bill on the way home, as he, said John W. Pierce had no money at the time.

We respectfully submit that said John W. Pierce is not and has never been over bright intellectually, and is easily overpersuaded; that he has never been in trouble or imprisonment before; that after returning home from Camp Merrit, that we having read Governor Bickett’s appeal to deserters to return and surrender themselves for service and that leniency would be extended to them, and a similar letter published by Judge F. H. Brooks, Chairman Council of Defense for Johnston County, were able to persuade said John W. Pierce to go before Dr. R. J. Noble, U. S. Commissioner, who took him before the Local Board #2 for Johnston County, and said Board thereafter sent him to Camp. That affiants, as well as their son, understood from the letters published by Governor Bickett and Judge Brooks, as well as the information given by the Local Board, that if said John W. Pierce would surrender himself for service that he would be treated leniency.

That your petitioner H. E. Pierce is going into his sixty-second birthday, and that your petitioner Emma Pierce is just past sixty-two years of age; that affiants own 102 acres of land in Boon Hill Township, Johnston County, North Carolina, thirty acres of which is under cultivation; that affiants have only one son at home to help them, Luther Pierce, who is about twenty-one years old, but who suffers with rheumatism and is unable to do heavy manual labor and at times is unable to do anything at all; that affiants need the said John W. Pierce to help them cultivate their lands and support them in their old age and help look after their son Luther Pierce, also.

THEREFORE, under the circumstances surrounding this case, and in view of our condition and needs, we most humble petition that Executive Clemency be extended to the said John W. Pierce and that he be pardoned and sent home.