Draft Exemptions in the Civil War

It is election time, and once again both political parties are dragging skeletons out of the “Anxiety Closet” to scare voters in the attempt to corral a few votes without actually working for them.  While such actions should (in a civilized world) immediately disqualify the candidate for office—if not temporarily suspend the legal sanctions against political assassination—the practice has become the norm.  One of the worst such periodic lies is the regular attempt to frighten young voters with the specter of a reinstated military draft, even though this country hasn’t drafted anyone in just months short of half a century.

I suppose that if we canvassed the entire country, we might find a handful of crackpots from both parties that support restarting the draft, even though these politicians tend to be the kind of loons that couldn’t organize a weekend kegger at a fraternity.  All of the branches of the military are deadest against reinstating the draft, both political parties are against the idea, and nationally, the idea polls slightly lower than flaming rectal cancer.  

It there were even a remote chance of restarting the draft, Congress would have updated the Selective Service System already.  Within 30 days of turning 18, men are required to register with the government, but those records are so messed up that it might take more than a full year to update the data to the point where it could be used.  Newly-arrived immigrants under the age of 25 are also required to register—something I doubt that many know.  And long before such a draft could start, Congress would probably have to finally decide whether women are required to register. (Assuming our politicians can finally figure out what a woman is, of course.  Besides, does a transgendered man have to register?  Does a transgendered female have to notify the Service about a change in status?)

More than enough ink has been spilled about the unpopularity of the draft during the Vietnam War, and I have no desire to rehash that mess, but you might be interested to learn that the draft has never been popular with Americans, not even during one of our country’s most heated and partisan conflicts, the Civil War.

On March 3, 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed into law our nation’s very first conscription law, the Enrollment Act of 1863.  All “able bodied men” between the ages of twenty and forty-five were 

“liable to perform military duty in the service of the United States when called out by the President for that purpose.”  The law included citizens and immigrants who expected to become citizens but stipulated that married men over the age of thirty-five were to be called up last.  There was a long list of exemptions:  African Americans, government officials, the only son of a widow, and the only son of elderly dependents were exempt.

Note.  There was a conscription act during the War of 1812, but the war ended before the act became effective.  And laws were passed during the American Revolution requiring able bodied men to purchase a firearm, but that was so that men could join the state militias.  It was not until the Civil War that a national government—either the United States or the Confederacy—conscripted anyone.

The exemptions above were to be expected, but there were some strange provisions, too.  If two members of a family were already serving, the family could select two other exempt members.  If elderly parents had two or more sons, the parents could select which son had to serve, and which son got to remain safe at home.  A single father of a young son could apply for exemption.

If all else failed, an eligible male who really didn’t want to go off to war could come up with a substitute to go in his place.  Failing that, he could pay the Secretary of War $300 (the equivalent of $6500 today) for a substitute to be found and paid, while some men—hired directly by the man who had been called up—were paid much more.  This last option was popular with wealthy businessmen like Theodore Roosevelt Sr., the father of Teddy Roosevelt.  Some have theorized that Teddy’s embarrassment at his father’s failure to wear a uniform in the war helped shape the future president’s character.  It may also explain why young Teddy, who was only three when the war began, insisted on wearing a tiny version of a Union uniform throughout most of the war.

There was no regular or widely used form of identification at the time, so unscrupulous men could sign on to substitute, be paid the bounty and almost immediately desert.  If they traveled to a new town, they could safely perform the same stunt multiple times, making a good living.  Such men were called ‘bounty jumpers’.  

Opposition to the draft among the poor led to demonstrations and occasional riots, but in total 777,829 were called up.  Either due to hiring substitutes or simply failing to report, only 46,347 of those conscripted men actually served in the Northern Army.  The rest—the vast majority of those who had been called up—never showed up and were never arrested.  Still, resentment about the draft was so intense that a popular contemporary song was parodied.

We're coming, ancient Abraham, several hundred strong

We hadn't no 300 dollars and so we come along

We hadn't no rich parents to pony up the tin

So we went unto the provost and there were mustered in.

The opposition to the draft, coupled with the New York Draft Riots of July 13-16, 1863, in which over 100 died and 2000 were injured, prompted Congress to amend the draft act in 1864 so that a payment of $300 only provided an exemption for a single year.

The Confederacy, with a smaller population than the North, started the war by offering enlistments of only twelve months, in accordance with the general belief on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line that hostilities would be over within a year.  Then, in April of 1862–just as those enlistments were coming to a close—the Confederate government passed a law that made any white male between eighteen and thirty-five liable to three years of military service.  While the law originally stated that a substitute could be hired, the law was so heavily criticized that the law was amended later the same year.

The first amendment abolished the hiring of substitutes while the second added the Twenty Negro Law, meaning that any plantation owner was allowed one family exemption for each 20 slaves he owned.  This effectively exempted the large plantation owners and their sons.  Studies of Confederate enlistment rolls and census data for the period shows that voluntary service for the war in the south was directly linked to prosperity.  Those who were too poor to own slaves were less likely to either volunteer or to accept conscription.  

As in the North, the conscription law was almost unenforceable.  Many called up men simply refused to serve, and in some cases resisted violently.  In the later years of the war, as the Confederacy became desperate for more soldiers, some southern counties succeeded from the Confederacy, declaring their loyalty to the United States.

In both the North and the South, the unfairness of the draft laws led to the popular conclusion that it was “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”