This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we continue with our American stories.

Up next, a story that comes to us from Frank Garman, who is a professor of American history at Christopher Newport University. He's also a Jack Miller Center Fellow. Let's take a listen.

I asked my colleague Jonathan White, who is a Civil War historian who just won the Lincoln Prize,

if he had any recommendations for collections that were accessible online.

And he mentioned that the pardon records sent to Abraham Lincoln had all been digitized.

So that semester, I asked my students to look through the pardon records in search of interesting

stories, and in October, one of my students told me about a letter that he had found concerning

Charles Callum's pardon application.

The letter is only two pages long, and it begins by describing the merits of the case.

Callum was only 19 years old when he was arrested for stealing from the post office in Portsmouth, Virginia.

And this first offense landed him with a 10-year sentence in the penitentiary in Richmond.

His application also contains several letters from his older sister,

who described the plight of their four orphaned siblings,

now that their mother had died while Charles was in prison.

And he also had letters of recommendation from a congressman, a former senator,

and petitions from prominent individuals from his hometown.

But the pardon clerk continued the letter,

stating that there is a lion in the path that leads to mercy in this case,

as he also had a letter from the superintendent of the Virginia Penitentiary

who explained that Callum was an old offender,

who had just been released from the same prison

...