Excellent work as usual with hard-to-find sources.
Cletis,

I had a sneaking suspicion that releases from the MO Pen were by group and not by name, and circumstantial evidence seems to bear out my feeling. Looking through Eakin's book about the war prisoners sent to the state pen I see that a large number of them were pardoned by President Johnson on 23 June 1865. With one or two exceptions, this seems to be the last date of release for these Eakin listed in her little book. By this time of the war releases of POWs at the military prisons in the St. Louis area were done in huge lots with only a few named exceptions still held for a while. That seems to also be the practice at the MO State Penitentiary. Bear in mind that this is merely circumstantial and I cannot with good conscience assert this is the case.

I read a newspaper account of a riot at this penitentiary, but can only recall that this took place late in the war. I don't know if this was a factor in the release. I personally believe the Union military acted on orders from high to release all but a few named individuals, but I cannot prove this. In other words prisoners were released unless they were named as still to be held. I recall clearly reading that Confederate Colonel and Reverend Timothy Reeves of southeast MO was one ordered to be held a few weeks longer.

This is on my docket to research and write, but I have not gotten that far along in the war yet.

Bruce Nichols