Biography
William B. Tolle of Mason County, Kentucky was arrested October 2,1861 under General William Nelson’s authority. Nelson alleged that he contributed $200 to equip a secession company and helped fit out men for the Southern army. Nelson’s October 5 letter also described his wife and her relatives as Union supporters and asked conditional release at their request, with continued surveillance. The official summary explicitly dates actual release October 17,1861. United States attorney F. Ball’s October 26 execution letter separately confirms that the Camp Chase prisoner had been discharged after signing the allegiance oath; the signed oath is referenced but omitted from the printed record. The oath conditions barred unauthorized entry into or correspondence with insurrectionary States. This was civilian political/recruitment detention, not demonstrated battlefield capture, and the source establishes no criminal conviction. October 5 is a release instruction and October 26 a later confirmation, not replacement discharge days. Source: Official Records, Series II, Volume II, section 2, printed pages 915–918, https://archive.org/details/cu31924079570259/page/n116/mode/1up.