In various proclamations and orders beginning in 1862, Davis suspended the writ and declared martial law in parts of Virginia (including the Confederate capital of Richmond, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Petersburg, and elsewhere). Davis also suspended the writ in East Tennessee; in this region, Thomas A.R. Nelson was arrested by the Confederate military and held as a political prisoner before being released on the condition that he cease criticizing the Confederate government. Suspensions of civil process in the confederacy were used against suspected Unionists, particularly in border states. Historian Barton A. Myers notes that after the Confederacy imposed nationwide conscription, "the difference between arrest for political dissidence and conscription into the military became largely semantic, as anyone accused of Unionism was almost always first taken to a training camp where they were monitored and hazed under guard."