Union substitutes

[Gettysburg Bullet]

If someone in the North did not want to serve in the service, could they buy their way out or get a substitute or do either? If so did the government keep records of this? If records, are they searchable on-line?

 

[lupaglupa]

Yes, substitutes could be bought to fulfill service. I have seen records of this in hard copy but not online. I've only looked in New York though, so I may be wrong about these records for other states.

 

[Gettysburg Bullet]

Yes, substitutes could be bought to fulfill service. I have seen records of this in hard copy but not online. I've only looked in New York though, so I may be wrong about these records for other states.

In New York did you find the hard copy in a library, historical society or other?

 

[lupaglupa]

At a historical society. Not, unfortunately, something easy to do unless you live close.

 

[Fairfield]

The Adjutant General Reports track this. The Maine AGO reports (and probably other states too) give the name of the substitute and the name of the person who paid him. You can also get this information by going through enlistment papers--but those files aren't always complete. Ancestry has the AGO reports for 1863 online but the substitutes are not in a separate database. You can Google your way into reports for other years but, again, no separate databases of Substitutes. Genealogical libraries, university libraries and large public libraries are apt to have copies of the AGO.

A draftee could also get out of serving by paying commutation. I've never seen individual names but you can find statistical summaries if you go through the AGO by regiments.

 

[lupaglupa]

The Adjutant General Reports track this. The Maine AGO reports (and probably other states too) give the name of the substitute and the name of the person who paid him. You can also get this information by going through enlistment papers--but those files aren't always complete. Ancestry has the AGO reports for 1863 online but the substitutes are not in a separate database. You can Google your way into reports for other years but, again, no separate databases of Substitutes. Genealogical libraries, university libraries and large public libraries are apt to have copies of the AGO.

A draftee could also get out of serving by paying commutation. I've never seen individual names but you can find statistical summaries if you go through the AGO by regiments.

Thank you @Fairfield - I'm hoping more of this info gets scanned and indexed as time goes on.

 

[Fairfield]

Thank you @Fairfield - I'm hoping more of this info gets scanned and indexed as time goes on.

Judging by the numbers involved, I think you may have to wait a while! There was a discussion on CWT several years ago about the numbers and I was so surprised (the overall figure is considerably higher than what I'd been seeing locally) that I checked into it--and it looks like they were right. Of course I can't find it now but the upshoot was that out of the huge number of men drafted, only about a fifth actually served themselves. @John Hartwell had some interesting facts on the situation in Massachusetts. Probably the numbers in Maine were smaller because this is an area of small towns: the social price of having hired a substitute was steep (especially if that substitute died).

 

[John Hartwell]

I think this is the threat @Fairfield was referring to:

Results of the First Federal Draft, July 1863 | Civil War Potpourri

In October 1863, Provost-Marshall General James B.Fry sent to Secretary Stanton the following interesting analysis of the first round of Federal conscription:

civilwartalk.com

 

[lupaglupa]

Judging by the numbers involved, I think you may have to wait a while! There was a discussion on CWT several years ago about the numbers and I was so surprised (the overall figure is considerably higher than what I'd been seeing locally) that I checked into it--and it looks like they were right. Of course I can't find it now but the upshoot was that out of the huge number of men drafted, only about a fifth actually served themselves. @John Hartwell had some interesting facts on the situation in Massachusetts. Probably the numbers in Maine were smaller because this is an area of small towns: the social price of having hired a substitute was steep (especially if that substitute died).

We don't get that in the South much - nearly everybody served!

 

[Fairfield]

I think this is the threat @Fairfield was referring to:

Results of the First Federal Draft, July 1863 | Civil War Potpourri

In October 1863, Provost-Marshall General James B.Fry sent to Secretary Stanton the following interesting analysis of the first round of Federal conscription:

civilwartalk.com

Thank you!!

 

[Fairfield]

We don't get that in the South much - nearly everybody served!

Yes and no. Until 1863 anyone who owned more than 20 slaves was exempt. The Confederate army also allowed for substitutes (who were hired with pretty much the same techniques used in the Union). And the rate of desertion was higher in the Confederate army.
For both sides, it was a poor man's war. Money talked. But the social stigma of having hired a substitute was considerable in non-urban areas such as Maine; I suspect that it was true in the south as well.

Then there were the Skedaddlers (as they were called in Maine--and probably elsewhere). Both sides had problems with bounty jumpers; in the Confederacy (I have read) the problem was compounded by substitution practices and became so severe that Confederate substitution policy was dropped.

 

[lupaglupa]

Yes and no. Until 1863 anyone who owned more than 20 slaves was exempt. The Confederate army also allowed for substitutes (who were hired with pretty much the same techniques used in the Union). And the rate of desertion was higher in the Confederate army.
For both sides, it was a poor man's war. Money talked. But the social stigma of having hired a substitute was considerable in non-urban areas such as Maine; I suspect that it was true in the south as well.

Then there were the Skedaddlers (as they were called in Maine--and probably elsewhere). Both sides had problems with bounty jumpers; in the Confederacy (I have read) the problem was compounded by substitution practices and became so severe that Confederate substitution policy was dropped.

All true. Overall, the percentage of men who served was higher in the South than the North. Having people in your backyard was a powerful incentive. But there were certainly those who tried not to enlist - by fair means or foul. And lots dragged their feet. My great-great-grandfather did not want to serve and only did so, according to my grandfather, after he came under some pretty direct pressure from the neighbors.

 

[Fairfield]

While looking for that statistical chart, I stumbled on this on the NARA site: https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1994/winter/civil-war-draft-records.html

 

[John Hartwell]

Conscription in the Confederacy was just about universal. Most of the men were volunteers, particularly in the first half of the war, but a great many others were given little choice.

Most of the southern rural resistance to conscription ("Kingdom of Jones, etc) was not so much "Unionist" as an unwillingness to risk life and limb in a war that could benefit only the rich land-(and slave-)owners and the county seat lawyers, politicians, and newspaper publishers that served their interests, but meant only sacrifice and misery for the common man. They were far enough from the seats of power not to have been deceived by the secessionists' propaganda aimed at convincing them it was in their best interest.