How Did Draft Age Eligible Men Avoid Service?

[BryanJ]

Several of my ancestors from Alabama, Texas and Louisiana fought during the war, with one being wounded at Shiloh and then again at Sharpsburg, one died at Malvern Hill, and my Great Grandfather made it through the war and returned to Alabama. My question is this, how frequent did age eligible men avoid service from both the North and South? Did it impact one side more so than the other? How did they avoid service? What repercussions were there for draft age eligible men, who for no legitimate reason, just refused to serve? Comments?

 

[Tom Elmore]

Lieutenant Colonel Hillary Moseley of the 42nd Mississippi was wounded at Gettysburg and recuperated in a Richmond area hospital, where he observed:

"A large portion of the strength of our Confederacy is absorbed in the co-ordinate departments. Young, vigorous, active men everywhere are to be seen attached to officers of all grades for screening of the wealthy sons from the hardships and dangers of camp and battlefields, and Virginia has by far the largest share. Many of them worthless, insolent vagabonds. Inefficiency marks by every footstep, and expressed in every lineament of the countenance. If the Augean Stables were purged and thrown into our army, filling up its decimated ranks, we should soon swell our ranks to a formidable host."

 

[East Tennessee Roots]

An Address by the Rebel Soldiers... How Confederate Conscription aided the Union Cause (Jan-Feb 1864). | Civil War Potpourri

I have read the speech and I don't recall any such distinction. Leftyhunter Ah, good. At my second look, Davis' comment in that speech about desertion looks like desparate politicized rhetoric. It's not based on anything except emotion.

civilwartalk.com

 

[Story]

@BryanJ, if you're at Shiloh, get yourself captured and sent to Camp Douglas in Chicago. When offered the opportunity to become a Galvanized Yankee, take it and join the army. When you get sent east, get sick and get sent to the hospital. You can catch up with your unit, or not, when you're well. If you're really enterprising, you could later join the Union navy, but take "French leave" from that organization, too. It worked for a gent named John Rowlands, aka William H. Stanley, aka Sir Henry Morton Stanley.

Dodge draft, then become a professional Bounty Jumper = profit like an Underpants Gnome.

 

[Belfoured]

Awhile back I reviewed a pretty good book titled Deserter Country: Civil War Opposition in the Pennsylvania Appalachians by Robert Sandow. It's a detailed study of how the local communities in rural PA sheltered guys who were AWOL or ducking the draft. To some extent it was just too much effort for the authorities to get involved with chasing these guys down - cost/benefit analysis.

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

In my family tree there were two who we suspect managed to evade service.

One, the youngest son, entered the seminary to study for the priesthood when the draft was started and promptly left the seminary in 1865 as soon as the war ended. He rather quickly married and got around to raising a large family.

The other, assumed to be my gggrandfather, had his age and that of his wife listed one way in the 1860 census, but in the 1870 census they are both clearly marked as being 15 years older instead of 10. In the 1880 census they revert to an age relative to what they reported in 1860. A theory is that he avoided the draft during the war by claiming to be too old.

 

[John Hartwell]

To some extent it was just too much effort for the authorities to get involved with chasing these guys down - cost/benefit analysis.

The Federal draft, in fact, was nearly more bother than it was worth. All told, drafted men + substitutes made up less than 6% of the U.S. forces. When it was ruled that communities that had exceeded their quota by volunteer enlistments could apply that excess to the draft quotas, some whole states (Mass., for instance) never held another draft after the first.

 

[Drew]

The Federal draft, in fact, was nearly more bother than it was worth.

The bloodiest, most violent and destructive riot in American history occurred in New York City in the summer of 1863. It was a "white riot" in which free blacks were hunted down and hung by mobs of white Yankee draft resisters.

I don't think any of the victims or perpetrators thought it was "more bother than it was worth."

 

[Drew]

The simple answer to the OP's question is this:

In the North, one could pay money to hire a "replacement," thus avoiding military service.

In the South, the Confederate Congress passed a bill allowing families with at least 20 slaves to hold back one son from military service. How many families took advantage of this I would like to know, but it will come from actual research and not internet posters' opinions.

Just like with Vietnam, there was a way out for the sons of the upper middle class.

 

[John Hartwell]

The bloodiest, most violent and destructive riot in American history occurred in New York City in the summer of 1863. It was a "white riot" in which free blacks were hunted down and hung by mobs of white Yankee draft resisters.

I don't think any of the victims or perpetrators thought it was "more bother than it was worth.

But if the draft had not been held, there would have been no draft riots. It did more harm than good.

 

[TnFed]

The bloodiest, most violent and destructive riot in American history occurred in New York City in the summer of 1863. It was a "white riot" in which free blacks were hunted down and hung by mobs of white Yankee draft resisters.

I don't think any of the victims or perpetrators thought it was "more bother than it was worth."

In the upper south, men favoring the Union cause made their way across the mountains from East Tennessee, Western NC. and Southwest Va, to the Union Army in Kentucky. Those trying to avoid both sides hid out in the mountains. On both sides, those with sufficient funds were able to pay substitutes to go in their place.

Good point. Eric Rudolph hid out in the Nantahalas for what?..five years, in modern times and that is with the FBI, ATF, state and local police, Cherokee guides, boar hunters and others looking for him with modern equipment and hounds. Finally got caught by a dumpster in my ancestral home of Murphy NC. Imagine what the Unakas and the Natahalas were like 160 years ago. I have been lost in the Unakas as a kid...did not enjoy it.
.

 

[neyankee61]

The 7th NJ had a total of 656 men desert. Of this number 447 joined the Regiment after Jan 1864. A few were noted to have deserted between the Rendezvous Camp in Trenton and the Army in VA, having never even making it to the Regiment.

 

[Bruce Vail]

The 7th NJ had a total of 656 men desert. Of this number 447 joined the Regiment after Jan 1864. A few were noted to have deserted between the Rendezvous Camp in Trenton and the Army in VA, having never even making it to the Regiment.

This was a good strategy. Avoid the draft by enlisting, then desert before being sent to the front. Efforts to round up deserters, particularly in the North, were badly organized and sporadic. The chances of slipping through the cracks in the system were good.

 

[neyankee61]

Most of these men were subs, draftees and clear bounty men. I think very few of them were volunteers, in the pure sense. Those who were stayed put. My great great grandfather enlisted in Sept 1862. Paid $100 bounty. He got $25 upon enlisting and $75 in June 1865 when he returned home

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

The quality of the men brought into service in the latter part of the war was very sketchy, regardless of which side they were on. By 1864 most of the men who wanted to be under arms had already joined.

 

[1950lemans]

I don't know how others evaded the draft but I can tell you how good, ole CONNECTICUT Yankees did it.
The draft was instituted in the summer of 1863, shortly after Gettysburg-Vicksburg-NYC draft riots. (Maybe that's why the governor issued pistols to the officials in charge).

So about 12,000 were drafted. 8000 were exempted: unfit, breadwinner, only son, etc. Another 2248 paid poorer guys as a substitute. So far we've got 2248 able bodies. Another 1750 inductees brought the total to 3998 draftees.

Well a bunch of the 1750 draftees were ticked off and burned down the conscript camp in New Haven. These guys just disappeared. POOF !!!

So now the group is headed down South --- to NYC, to Newark, to Philadelphia on board trains. In stages the subs and draftees "jumped ship". A couple of times they assaulted guards.

They left the train stations and most likely headed WEST. To communities in Illinois, in Minnesota, the territories, to California. New name, new identity, new life, new career.

So how many CT draftees honorably served? 248 or about .02.

Reference: CONNECTICUT IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR Slavery, Sacrifice, & Survival, Matthew Warshauer, 2011.

 

[Bruce Vail]

I don't know how others evaded the draft but I can tell you how good, ole CONNECTICUT Yankees did it.
The draft was instituted in the summer of 1863, shortly after Gettysburg-Vicksburg-NYC draft riots. (Maybe that's why the governor issued pistols to the officials in charge).

So about 12,000 were drafted. 8000 were exempted: unfit, breadwinner, only son, etc. Another 2248 paid poorer guys as a substitute. So far we've got 2248 able bodies. Another 1750 inductees brought the total to 3998 draftees.

Well a bunch of the 1750 draftees were ticked off and burned down the conscript camp in New Haven. These guys just disappeared. POOF !!!

So now the group is headed down South --- to NYC, to Newark, to Philadelphia on board trains. In stages the subs and draftees "jumped ship". A couple of times they assaulted guards.

They left the train stations and most likely headed WEST. To communities in Illinois, in Minnesota, the territories, to California. New name, new identity, new life, new career.

So how many CT draftees honorably served? 248 or about .02.

Reference: CONNECTICUT IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR Slavery, Sacrifice, & Survival, Matthew Warshauer, 2011.

For those not familiar with the details of NYC Draft Riots, they may be surprised to learn it turned out that for local New York County residents that rioting was an effective way to avoid conscription. Following the riot, the City Council appropriated funds that would pay the commutation fee for any county resident who was conscripted but didn't want to go.