NORTHERN DRAFT of 1862
The War Department had originally set the draft for Sept. 3, to be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., or until the quotas were filled (no quotas were set for California and Oregon). The War Department gave up all chance of a speedy conscription when it allowed the governors to take responsibility for the drafts in their states. They used their authority to postpone the dreaded day two and three times. In Ohio, the governor postponed the draft to Oct. 1. On Sept. 29, the governor of Maryland postponed the draft there until Oct. 15. Massachusetts put off its draft until Dec. 8, and Iowa put it off until January 1863. Minnesota postponed its draft to deal with a serious Sioux uprising. Lincoln wired the governor his approval on Sept. 27: "Attend to the Indians. If the draft cannot proceed, of course it will not proceed."
As if the governors didn't have enough to do, the South's first major invasion of the North got underway in the midst of the draft enrollment. After battering the Army of the Potomac in the Second Bull Run battle, Lee's troops crossed into western Maryland and headed north. A second Rebel army launched an offensive into Kentucky, headed toward Ohio.
The panic hit Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's capital, on Sept. 7, with rumors that women, children and state archives were about to be sent out of the city for safety. It was fueled by the arrival of the Hagerstown train, which brought news of the Rebel occupation of Frederick, Md. The alarm spread to surrounding counties in the next day or two. The "Valley Spirit" newspaper of Sept. 10, 1862, tried to turn the invasion into an enlistment appeal in an article headlined "To the Rescue--Freemen of Franklin County."
"The darkest hour of our Country's history is upon us. Gen. Pope's army in Virginia, after the most terrific fighting, has fallen back to the fortifications around Washington, and the Nation's Capital is again threatened by an insolent foe. The invading hosts of the enemy have pressed the soil of Maryland, and our own beautiful valley may at any hour become the victim of a similar invasion. Citizens of Franklin county, the enemy is at the very threshold of your homes, your altars and your firesides. Will you not instantly respond to the call of your Government in this the day of your country's peril? Let not the wisest, the best, and most glorious Government ever devised by the wisdom of man, be despoiled and overthrown by armed traitors, when you have the power to prevent it. Let it not be said that the Government failed to enforce its authority and punish rebellion by inaction on our part. Come one, come all, who are able to bear arms, and enrol [sic] your names in some one or other of the companies that are now forming in different parts of the county, and thus show that the patriotism of Franklin county is equal to any emergency. The draft has been postponed until the 20th, which affords another opportunity for Franklin county, to fill her quota of men by voluntary enlis[t]ments."
However, in spite of this and similar appeals, the invasion probably slowed enlistments in the state. On Sept. 11, Gov. Curtin had called for 50,000 "emergency militia" men to defend Pennsylvania. He got a swift response: 25 regiments and four unattached companies of infantry, 14 companies of cavalry, and four battalions of artillery. The invasion had been turned back at Antietam by the time they gathered, however, and he dismissed these men on Sept. 24.
These "emergency militias" were state units, recruited to defend the state, never mustered into federal service and never meant to be. The prompt filling of this many outfits probably suggests the reservoir of "state line" feeling in Pennsylvania, where a great many were willing to defend the commonwealth, or even the North, but not to cross into the South to wage war. In a similar situation during the Gettysburg crisis the next year, when some regiments of Pennsylvania emergency militia were ordered to take up position just across the border in Maryland a number refused to do so. They were discharged and sent home.
Curtin then delayed the draft in Pennsylvania yet again, to allow the emergency men time to register for exemptions, since they had been away from their homes -- in military service -- during the week when men were supposed to be pleading why they were unfit for military service.
The county sheriffs were in charge of the actual drafting. The procedure was the same one used for picking jurors in that county; with names of each eligible man written on a folded slip of paper, and the necessary number picked from a box or a rotating drum called a "jury wheel." This was to be done by a man in a blindfold who had been named in advance by the county's draft commissioner.
Several states began drafting in mid-September. The Ohio draft was underway by Oct. 5, when Gov. David Tod wrote to Stanton informing him of its progress. Indiana drafted on Oct. 6, and violence erupted immediately in Blackford County, especially the Trenton area, which was a notorious Copperhead haven. The rioters there destroyed the enrollment lists and the draft ballot box. It required 300 infantry to quell the disturbance.
On Oct. 15, in Maryland, 40 men were chosen to fill Baltimore's quota. The draft commenced Oct. 15 in Boston, but two days later the Common Council of Boston voted to raise the volunteer bounty to $200, so drafting there ceased for the time being. Massachusetts delayed until December.
On Oct. 16, the draft began in every county in Pennsylvania except Philadelphia. The nation's most serious resistance to conscription broke out Oct. 17, in Berkley, Luzerne County, where the military fired on a mob of rioters and killed 4 or 5 of them. Resistance also flared in Carbondale, Scranton, and other regions in the coal country, mostly among the Irish.
Gov. Curtin wrote to Secretary of War Stanton on Oct. 22: "The draft is being resisted in several counties of the State. In Schuylkill County I am just informed that 1,000 armed men are assembled, and will not suffer the train to move with the drafted men to this place. I wish ample authority to use my troops in the State, and particularly the regulars and Anderson Cavalry at Carlisle, to crush this effort instantly. We will thus enforce the law, and effectually, if successful, prevent the like occurring in other parts of the State."
Stanton wrote back, authorizing Curtin to use "the regular force, the Anderson Cavalry, and any other military force in your State to enforce the militia draft, and also to call upon Major-General Wool, the commanding general of the Middle Department, for aid, if you desire it."
"Notwithstanding the usual exaggerations, I think the organization to resist the draft in Schuylkill, Luzerne, and Carbon Counties is very formidable," Curtin telegraphed Stanton the next day. "There are several thousands in arms, and the people who will not join have been driven from the county. They will not permit the drafted men, who are willing, to leave, and yesterday forced them to get out of the cars. I wish to crush the resistance so effectually that the like will not occur again." He asked for a regiment of regular troops, but Stanton replied that none was available.
In the end, feeble enforcement of the draft laws cooled the riots. Lincoln informed the state authorities by confidential messenger, "I am very desirous to have the laws fully executed, but it might be well, in an extreme emergency, to be content with the appearance of executing the laws."
On Oct. 25, Curtin telegraphed Stanton that "[t]he riots in Schuylkill County have ceased for the present." He also expressed a note of frustration that the state had been left to deal with the entire set of problems created by the draft, without a force or authority sufficient to do so:
I beg to observe that this enrollment and draft have been made under the authority of and directly by the United States. I originally suggested, therefore, that they should be conducted by officers of the United States, but that suggestion not being adopted, I have acted for the United States in superintending the enrollment and the drawing of names for the quota. The next step contemplated by the regulations is the appointment of provost-marshals to enforce the attendance of the drafted men. I have not nominated persons to fill this office, because I do not perceive that officers of that kind are necessary.By the act of 29th of June, 1861, penalties are provided for drafted men who shall not obey the orders of the President, but there is no act authorizing them to be forcibly impressed.
I would advise that a regulation be made directing that the courts-martial shall be immediately held on all recusants. These courts must be ordered by the President.
In this mode I think you would get the men more easily than by the use of force. Men unwilling to go, and unable to pay the probable fine, will serve in the army on pay [in preference] to being shut up in prison without pay. Those who are able to pay the fine will prefer using the money in procuring substitutes. The same limit of the fine will probably regulate the price of substitutes. I respectfully submit these matters for your consideration.
Curtin was correct in pointing out the lack of coercive force to get drafted men into the rendezvous camps. The adjutant general of Pennsylvania wrote to the War Department on Nov. 3, "Of the draft in this state about one-fourth have not been delivered, and the State is powerless to deliver them. An energetic provost-martial will be necessary to seize them."
There was another problem, the adjutant general added: "Of those delivered a very large number were not examined by a medical officer for the want, as it is alleged, of time before the date set for the delivery; consequently very many are totally unfit for the service. To prevent such men being sent to join regiments, I request that three medical officers of the Army be directed to report to me to inspect the men at Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Pittsburgh ...."
In Maryland, where resentment of the Union cause still ran deep, the quota had at first been set at 8,532. On Aug. 26, it was reduced to 6,000. On Nov. 24, Maryland Gov. A.W. Bruford informed the War Department that "The number drafted for nine months will be 6,000 in the State, but all the counties have not yet drafted; nor all the drafted men reported from their counties that have." In the end Maryland claims to have furnished 3,586 men, volunteers and draftees, but the process there appears to have been very unruly.
Wisconsin was the last state to begin drafting. Only on Oct. 22 did the governor set the county quotas, and he ordered drafting to get underway Nov. 10. The draft would hit hardest in the counties around Milwaukee, which were heavily populated by recent immigrants from central Europe, who had come to America in many cases to save their sons from compulsory military service in their homelands.
There were mutterings about irregularities in the enrollment process, with the men in charge said to be skipping over either their fellow Republicans or their Masonic lodge brothers. On Nov. 11, at Port Washington, on the Lake Michigan shore, a mob attacked the draft as it was in process. Rioters -- armed with pitchforks, a small cannon used to celebrate the Fourth of July, and "the town's only cannonball" -- ransacked the house of the draft commissioner, threw him down the stairs, and defied authorities until troops of the 28th Wisc. were sent to quell the disturbance. Some 130 draft resisters were arrested. Most spent a year in prison, without trial, and were released. The same problems complained of by the Pennsylvania adjutant general applied in Wisconsin. Of the 4,500 men ultimately drafted in Wisconsin, only about 958 came in and were fit for duty.