Belle Montgomery
2nd Lieutenant
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2017
- Location
- 44022
Quakers often refused to be drafted into the U.S. Army during the Civil War. Library of Congress
Abraham Lincoln faced a dilemma, thanks to a trio of Vermonters. The president was trying to put down an insurrection and reunite the country, but he wanted to do so while protecting religious freedom. The Vermonters were making it hard for him to do both.
In 1863, the Vermonters — Peter Dakin of Ferrisburgh, Lindley M. Macomber of Grand Isle, and Cyrus Pringle of Charlotte — found themselves at the heart of a potentially deadly battle with the Army over whether they could be forced, against their religious beliefs, to serve. As Quakers, they had dedicated themselves to pacifism, so they argued they could not maintain their faith and take up arms. Refusing to fight might have been more dangerous for the men than enlisting — the Army was threatening them with court-martials that could lead to imprisonment and possible execution.
Friends and relatives prodded the men to find a graceful way out. But they steadfastly refused to do anything that aided the war effort. Why not simply pay the $300 commutation fee, to buy their way out of serving, they were asked. But the men said the government would use that money to fight the war. They even rejected others’ offers to pay the fee for them.
Cyrus Pringle was part of a group of three Vermont Quakers who refused to fight in the Civil War. Wikimedia Commons
“We confess a higher duty than that to country; and, asking no military protection of our Government and grateful for none, deny any obligation to support so unlawful a system,” explained Pringle in his journal. Much of what we know about the drama comes to us from a journal Pringle kept, which was published 50 years later, in 1913, in The Atlantic Monthly, and again as a book in 1918, during World War I.
The military shipped the men out as prisoners, hoping they would eventually obey orders. “(A)s the town clock (in Rutland) tolled the hour of seven, we were driven amongst the flock that was going forth to the slaughter, down the street and into the cars for Brattleboro,” he wrote. “…At Brattleboro we were marched up to the camp; our knapsacks and persons searched; and any articles of citizen’s dress taken from us; and then shut up in a rough board building under a guard.”
They slept on boards and ate meals consisting of burnt bread, occasionally some aging meat, and peas. But they were only passing through Brattleboro. Within two days, they were...
Rest of Article: https://vtdigger.org/2020/08/09/the...-as-conscientious-objectors-during-civil-war/