Billy1977
Sergeant
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2016
- Location
- Flippin, Arkansas (near Yellville)
Hello everybody, I have a question about Confederate conscription in Tennessee. As far as I knew the Confederate government didn't institute conscription until about a week after the Battle of Shiloh. But today I read in the Official Records the following bit of information from a report by Grant on 13 March 1862 about a skirmish that happened two days earlier, at Paris, Tennessee in which Grant says "Learning that rebel troops had assembled at Paris for the purpose of enforcing conscription orders of Governor Harris, I sent night before last a portion of Curtis' Horse, Fifty-second Indiana, and Bulliss' battery."
http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moawar;cc=moawar;idno=waro0010;node=waro0010:3;view=image;seq=34;size=100;page=root
What "conscription orders" could Grant be referring to since it was early March and it would be another month before the Confederate Congress would even authorize conscription? Maybe it is something to do with some Tennessee militia or something, maybe there was a Tennessee militia and Harris was calling it into service and it was assembling at Paris and Grant is inaccurately referring to this as "conscription"? Other than that I can't imagine what Grant could be talking about since I doubt Isham Harris would try to enforce conscription of his own accord without permission from the central government. Anybody know anything about this?
http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moawar;cc=moawar;idno=waro0010;node=waro0010:3;view=image;seq=34;size=100;page=root
What "conscription orders" could Grant be referring to since it was early March and it would be another month before the Confederate Congress would even authorize conscription? Maybe it is something to do with some Tennessee militia or something, maybe there was a Tennessee militia and Harris was calling it into service and it was assembling at Paris and Grant is inaccurately referring to this as "conscription"? Other than that I can't imagine what Grant could be talking about since I doubt Isham Harris would try to enforce conscription of his own accord without permission from the central government. Anybody know anything about this?