"How Mandatory Military Service Started In The Civil War" Topic

"On July 7, 1863, the first draft took effect in the North during the Civil War. It was a disaster.
On July 7, during the height of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation putting into effect the first military draft after several months of registration. It was authorized by the Enrollment Act of 1863 passed in March, and was the first draft actually enforced in the history of the United States.

Though the Militia Act of 1792 ostensibly ordered every able-bodied man into the militia, it was never consistently enforced. The wave of enthusiasm and volunteers at the outbreak of the Civil War had waned in the face of defeat and slaughter in the eastern campaigns.

The enrollment act affected all able-bodied male citizens and immigrants who had applied for citizenship aged from 20 to 45, with deferments granted to anyone who could pay $300 USD or hire a substitute…"
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Amicalement
Armand

The Confederate States of America instituted a draft before that, April 16, 1862. It was every bit as unpopular with southerners as the US draft was in the north. It also exempted the rich. It was dodged just as much in the south as in the north.

Question: In the AWI you could paid or put another guy in your place (slave?).

Seems that same thing happened on the ACW.

So, why white southeners don't put black slaves in their places for fighting?.

Or at least mixed man (white father black mother).?

And did it the "Union guys"?

Just curious.

Amicalement
Armand

In the north a draftee could hire a substitute and many did. This was how conscription 'exempted the rich' in the north.

In the south, men who owned a certain number of slaves (6?) were exempt from the draft.

In general, slaves in the south were not allowed to bear arms, but substitued for their white masters by being drafted as laborers to build fortifications and roads.

The business of defining the color bar, who could volunteer or be drafted for war in what role, could get quite complicated. Race is a social construction. There have always been Americans of mixed ancestry who 'passed' for white, or were accepted by their white neighbors as social equals, sometimes in spite of obvious dark complexions.

Some men of mixed race served under arms in both Union and Confederate armies in predominately white units. But armed blacks were mistrusted north and south, and it was late in the war before the Federal government accepted enlistment of free blacks and former slaves into all-colored regiments. The Confederate goverment supposedly did the same only at its last gasp in 1865.

Many thanks for your guidance my friend!.

I have to understand that those six slaves for laborers have to travel with the Rebel Army where they want.
They feed them but they have to work in trenches, etc?

Quite interesting!.

Amicalement
Armand

No, my understanding is that the Confederate authorities would draft local slaves for building projects and release them back to their owners when the projects were done. I don't think any organized units of slaves marched with the Confederate field armies.

ok.

Thanks for the clarification my friend!.

Amicalement
Armand