From the Mississippi Department of Archives and History Governor Ames Collection. Legal Document containing a contract between the Mississippi State Penitentiary and the Mobile and Ohio Rail Road to supply inmates for labor.

From the Mississippi Department of Archives and History Governor Ames Collection. Petition from John M. Powell to Mississippi Governor Adelbert Ames, asking for a pardon for George Jones, convicted of Grand Larceny. Attached is a pardon issued March 25, 1874.

From the Mississippi Department of Archives and History Governor Ames Collection. Letter from Mississippi Governor Adelbert Ames to Mississippi State Senate, recommending more manufacturing facilities at the Mississippi State Penitentiary to make it a source of revenue.

From the Mississippi Department of Archives and History Governor Ames Collection. Petition from several citizens of Warren County, Mississippi, to Mississippi Governor Adelbert Ames, asking for the pardon of Thomas Dervish.

From the Mississippi Department of Archives and History Governor Ames Collection. Petition from several citizens of Lincoln County, Mississippi, to Mississippi Governor Adelbert Ames, asking Ames to intervene in the case against a man sentenced to three years of hard labor in the Mississippi State Penitentiary.

From the Mississippi Department of Archives and History Governor Alcorn Collection. Report from P. B. Starke, Thos. W. Stinger, and T. J. Mitchell, members of a committee appointed to assess the affairs of the Mississippi State Penitentiary, to Mississippi Governor James L. Alcorn, containing the results of the committee's investigation into the condition of the penitentiary - including plantations leased by the penitentiary where some convicted persons, mostly African Americans, are made to perform labor - and its inmates. There are several pages of information concerning some inmates needing medical attention, some inmates whom the committee believed were improperly convicted, and recommended pardons or commutations of sentences. Appended are additional "special reports" concerning particular cases and persons.

From the Mississippi Department of Archives and History Governor Alcorn Collection. Letter from Anderson Rutland to Mississippi Governor James L. Alcorn, recounting the events of how he was first imprisoned during the Civil War for horse theft and how he came to be released, only to be rearrested. He is asking Alcorn to review his case to see if his second arrest was legal in hopes that Alcorn would order his release.

From the Mississippi Department of Archives and History Governor Alcorn Collection. Letter from Judge Wade H. Hough of the 13th District in Louisiana, containing a certified copy of a judgement of the conviction of William E. Brewer from the State of Louisiana. Brewer was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to two years of hard labor in the Louisiana Penitentiary in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He was also fined $1 and is liable for the cost of prosecution.