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Rick, it was my understanding the brand "D" would be on the cheek.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
I read an interesting book many years ago concerning this issue. It seems that there was a fairly thriving business during the war in "replacements". In the Union army a man could avoid the draft by furnishing a replacement who would take his place. Many of these replacements were payed rather well for such duty by the man they were replacing; they would then slip away at the first opportunity and repeat the whole process for someone else (for a profit of course).
Yes, I too, have come across that information. I remember reading the cost of a replacement to be around $300 and there being resentments in cities like New York because "the rich" were allowed to avoid the draft. Some of these replacements were caught because they stretched their luck, i.e., they tried this game too many times.
The price varied, sometimes it depended on how desperate one was to avoid the draft. One of the men I researched was paid 400 dollars to go as a substitute. Below is George Washington Dutcher's record indicating who he substituted for in the 65th New york Infantry:
Dutcher, George W. Age 18; Enlisted in Company A, April 3, 1865 as substitute for A.T. Waterbury #1349148 for the sum of 400 dollars; Musician; Described as light complexion, blue eyes, brown hair, 5’5”.enlisted for one year. Present on the muster roll for April, May, June; Discharged July 17, 1865. 1909 entry that the true name of the soldier was Washington I. Dutcher.
The term used to describe those men who would sign up for bountys to enlist, not substitute, was 'bounty jumpers.' These men made a living out of enlisting at one location, collecting the bounty offered by both State and other agencies and then 'jump' to another different location and do the whole thing over again.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Regarding the cost of hiring a replacement for the Union army, the sum of 300-400 dollars is what I've seen too. To put that into modern bucks, I use Nofi's formula of multiply it by 35 (that is, an 1860s Federal dollar was worth 35 of ours. If Zou's math does not fail, that means a replacement cost $10,500 to $14,000 cash. I don't have that much lying around. So it really was to the benefit of the rich, though the purchase of a substitute was open to all... who had the money.
On the Confederate side, one was exempted if he owned a certain number of a certain kind of property. I don't know if there was a substitute system in place there as well.
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