Sharon --

Let me assure you that the service files do NOT include anything to suggest that soldiers simply "raised their hands at once and took the oath and never actually signed their names". Such a document would have no binding effect on either party.

For enlisted men like Ashcraft, whether signing with an 'X' or not, names were copied onto a roll or register book. Rolls composed in the Carolinas were actually written on Confederate company roll blanks, signed by company officers and counter-signed by Federal officers who supervised the parole process.

Enlisted men signed (or marked 'X') individual parole documents, also signed and counter-signed by officers as noted above. Each soldier was supposed to take this parole home. If stopped by Federal soldiers, display of the signed parole would allow paroled Confederates to continue home and remain undisturbed. Anyone who couldn't show a signed parole or oath of allegiance might be arrested and sent to prison. If reason existed to suspect a man of being a guerrilla (how would he prove otherwise?), Federal patrols in some areas had positive orders to execute him on the spot.

Sometimes Confederate veterans sent their paroles in with their pension applications. Pension boards considered these firm proof of Confederate service.

The man you mentioned probably was on his way home from Richmond, which would make the month May 1865.