In his 1876 book On the Necessity of Amnesty, Francis-Xavier Raspail writes about the success of the decision of the American government to amnesty former rebels, and cites it as a positive example in favour of a similar amnesty after France's own civil war. How would a writer and politician from France have come to this conclusion, and does it match how the amnesty was seen in America in the decade following the war?
Caroline Janney has a book called Ends of War that gets into the topic. The book won the Gilder Lerhman Lincoln prize for 2021. I'd read that to get an idea b/c it was kind of a confusing mess.
But how people felt about amnesty depended a lot on where and when you look. People were open to the idea and hopeful after Grant's widespread and generous parole and it did look like it would encourage the south to surrender after Appomattox. But then Lincoln was assassinated and feelings hardened. In the border states there was a lot of anxiety about amnesty. States didn't want people they saw as traitors returning and causing unrest. States like Kentucky and Maryland that had guerrilla action or a large portion of the population of questionable loyalty were incredibly irked. West Virginia was especially angry about returning confederates.
Grant and Sherman felt that a parole that would get converted to amnesty was the quickest way to end the war, to secure a surrender and to get confederates back to their homes and farming. Their major fear, and bear in mind the entire southern economy was falling apart and food was scarce b/c the labor behind food production basically got up and left, was that the rebels would turn to banditry. Grant's position was that if they didn't return to their homes quickly there would be much more difficult to solve problems. Instead of organized army units there would be individual bandit gangs that would have to be searched out and brought to justice.
Sherman famously was forced to withdraw his terms of surrender to Johnston. He thought they were basically the same as Grant's and were in line with Lincoln's state views. But Stanton and the GOP in the house felt he overstepped his role as a military leader into the political and Lincolns assassination made everyone feel a lot less generous.
The archetype for Grant's fears was John Mosby and his cavalry battalion. He was known as the Grey Ghost and basically considered a pirate on a horse. And Grant's fears weren't baseless, Quantrille's raiders became exactly what they feared Mosby's would become.
James Speed was the AG for the US at the time and he wasn't thrilled about the parole process. States were writing him for advice on what to do. Paroled confederates were turning up in their home states on the border or further north and being arrested and charged with treason. Franz Lieber of the famous Lieber code was consulted by the NY Times for his opinion on whether or not the pardon should be extended to an amnesty and he explained why it shouldn't.
Some states formed Home Guards and vigilance committees. Some of the border states and communities passed laws against wearing Confederate uniforms. Confederates that wore their uniforms in states like West Virginia would become the targets of mobs and could be arrested. Lucius Chandler was the US district attorney for Easter VA and he indicted several military and civilian leaders for treason.
Johnson was under a lot of pressure from Grant to honor the parole and from states to do something about the returning rebels. He kind of never really had a clear idea of what too do and it cost him politically. He wasn't anywhere near as good of a politician as Lincoln and didn't have the respect of his cabinet and anything he did left most people angry at him. He felt he couldn't defy Grant b/c of Grant's popularity but his relationship with house Republicans was terrible and getting worse. He couldn't or wouldn't get Speed and Lieber on the same page with Grant. He embarrassed Sherman by making Sherman withdraw his terms of peace even though they were substantially the same as Grant's parole.
I don't know about the French belief or reaction, but the amnesty was one of the many factors of Johnson's defeat and the strengthening of the GOP in the mid term elections. Anger about it helped with the 14th and 15th Amendment ratification process. It allowed the lost cause myth to grow. It angered the border states and lead to the indictments. It was basically kind of more of an uncoordinated mess that just happened than any thoughtful policy.