At the conclusion of our Civil War, most Americans would be surprised that in its aftermath, only two confederates were executed for their war crimes. The infamous Henry Wirz was executed for his war crimes against the prisoners held in Andersonville, of which he was the commander of. The only other confederate executed after the war, was the notorious Champ Ferguson, a sadistic confederate guerilla, who took the lives of civilians, Union sympathizers, and Union soldiers, often times done in cold blood. As for the confederate leadership, such as the President, Vice-President, governors of the rebel states, judges of the rebel states, generals of the confederacy, colonels, and so on down to the lowliest private, none of these other men were executed, not a single one.
Not only were with the exception of two men listed above, no other confederates tried and upon duly being convicted, subjected to execution, not a single confederate was ever convicted of treason against the United States of America. While it is true, that confederate president Jefferson Davis, as well as General Robert E. Lee, in addition to some others were later indicted for treason, all in the end were granted a general amnesty by President Johnson in 1869. For the most part, rebel soldiers were allow to return to their lands upon their defeat, and upon taking a loyalty oath or receiving a pardon they would become, once again, fully invested with all the material rights of the citizenship of America.
This meant, in effect, that the rebel states were able to instigate and sustain a bloody and destructive four-year civil war, that cost many men on both sides of the conflict their lives, their health, their livelihood, and their possessions, and upon defeat, to be taken back into the fold of America, as if in essence, that they were prodigal sons.
The magnanimity of the United States to their former compatriots was absolutely astonishing, and a credit to the graciousness and wisdom of the United States of America. Lincoln's belief was that to subjugate and to punish the South further, would serve no useful purpose, and would unnecessarily delay the reunification of the United States of America; an important step in making the USA, a country that in no way or form, that Europe would ever be able to threaten or conquer by war, as well as making our country more prosperous in its trade with foreign nations.
Lincoln stated in his second Inaugural Address, just a month before the end of this great civil war, that: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." Unlike so many other politicians, Lincoln meant the words that he spoke, and to the credit of this great nation, even after Lincoln's assassination, the country for the most part, made good on those words.
To take the life of another man is not necessarily a difficult thing to do, because mankind has created weapons that do those deeds quite effectively. To take a man that is your sworn enemy, and to make him your friend, by not destroying him when you have him in your possession to do so, demonstrates maturity, charitableness, agape love, and hope in a better future.
This is the legacy of showing mercy to our erring brothers.