Read Ebook: Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama by Fleming Walter L Walter Lynwood

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ended works. Forrest and two or three hundred men escaped; the remainder surrendered. When the Federals entered the city, night had fallen, and the soldiers plundered without restraint until morning. Forrest had ordered that all the government whiskey in the city be destroyed, but after the barrels were rolled into the street the Confederates had no time to knock in the heads before the city was captured. The Federals were soon drunk. All the houses in the city were entered and plundered. A newspaper correspondent who was with Wilson's army said that Selma was the worst-sacked town of the war. One woman saved her house from the plunderers by pulling out all the drawers, tearing up the beds, throwing clothes all over the floor along with dishes and overturned tables, chairs, and other things. When the soldiers came to the house, they concluded that others had been there before them and departed. The outrages, robberies, and murders committed by Wilson's men, notwithstanding his stringent order against plundering, are almost incredible. The half cannot be told. The destruction was fearful. The city was wholly given up to the soldiers, the houses sacked, the women robbed of their watches, earrings, rings, and other jewellery. The negroes were pressed into the work of destruction, and when they refused to burn and destroy, they were threatened with death by the soldiers. Every one was robbed who had anything worth taking about his person. Even negro men on the streets and negro women in the houses were searched and their little money and trinkets taken.

Nearly every man of Wilson's command had a canteen filled with jewellery gathered on the long raid through the richest section of the state. The valuables of the rich Cane Brake and Black Belt country had been deposited in Selma for safe-keeping, and from Selma the soldiers took everything valuable and profitable. Pianos were made into feeding troughs for horses. The officers were supplied with silver plate stolen while on the raid. In Russell County a general officer stopped at a house for dinner, and had the table set with a splendid service of silver plate taken from Selma. His escort broke open the smoke-house and, taking hams, cut a small piece from each of them and threw the remainder away. Everything that could be was destroyed. Soft soap and syrup were poured together in the cellars. They took everything they could carry and destroyed the rest.

On April 10 Wilson's command started for Montgomery. A negro regiment of 800 men was organized at Selma and accompanied the army, subsisting on the country. Before reaching Georgia there were several such regiments. On April 12 Montgomery was surrendered by the mayor. The Confederates had burned 97,000 bales of cotton to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy. The captors burned five steamboats, two rolling mills, a small-arms factory, two magazines of stores, all the rolling stock of the railways, and the nitre works, the fire spreading also to the business part of the town. Here, as at Selma, horses, mules, and valuables were taken by the raiders.

The force was then divided into two columns, one destined for West Point and the other for Columbus. The last fights on Alabama soil occurred near West Point on April 16, and at Girard, opposite Columbus, on the same day. At the latter place immense quantities of stores, that had been carried across the river from Alabama, were destroyed.

Croxton's force reached Tuscaloosa April 3, and burned the University buildings, the nitre works, a foundry, a shoe factory, and the Sipsey cotton mills. After burning these he moved eastward across the state, destroying iron works, nitre factories, depots, and cotton factories. Before he reached Georgia, Croxton had destroyed nearly all the iron works and cotton factories that had been missed by Rousseau and Wilson.

Destruction by the Armies

For three years north Alabama was traversed by the contending armies. Each burned and destroyed from military necessity and from malice. General Wilson said that after two years of warfare the valley of the Tennessee was absolutely destitute. From the spring of 1862 to the close of the war the Federals marched to and fro in the valley. There were few Confederate troops for its defence, and the Federals held each community responsible for all attacks made within its vicinity. It became the custom to destroy property as a punishment of the people. Much of the destruction was unnecessary from a military point of view. Athens and smaller towns were sacked and burned, Guntersville was shelled and burned; but the worst destruction was in the country, by raiding parties of Federals and "tories," or "bushwhackers" dressed as Union soldiers. Huntsville, Florence, Decatur, Athens, Guntersville, and Courtland, all suffered depredation, robbery, murder, arson, and rapine. The tories destroyed the railways, telegraph lines, and bridges, and as long as the Confederates were in north Alabama they had to guard all of these.

Along the Tennessee River the gunboats landed parties to ravage the country in retaliation for Confederate attacks. In the counties of Lauderdale, Franklin, Morgan, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, and Jackson nearly all property was destroyed.

In 1863, a member of Congress from north Alabama tried to get arms from Bragg for the old men to defend the county against Federal raiders, but failed, and wrote to Davis that all civilized usages were being disregarded, women and children turned out and the houses burned, grain and provisions destroyed, women insulted and outraged, their money, jewellery, and clothing being stolen.

In December, 1863, General Sherman ordered that all the forage and provisions in the country around Bridgeport and Bellefont "be collected and stored, and no compensation be allowed rebel owners." In April, 1864, General Clanton wrote to Governor Watts that the "Yankees spared neither age, sex, nor condition." Tories and deserters from the hills made frequent raids on the defenceless population.

General Dodge reported, May, 1863, that his army had destroyed or carried off in one raid near Town Creek, "fifteen million bushels of corn, five hundred thousand pounds of bacon, quantities of wheat, rye, oats, and fodder, one thousand horses and mules, and an equal number of cattle, sheep, and hogs, besides thousands that the army consumed in three weeks; we also brought out fifteen hundred negroes, destroyed five tanyards and six flouring mills, and we left the country in such a devastated condition that no crop can be raised during the year;" and nothing was left that would in the least aid the Confederates. On the night of his retreat Dodge lit up the Tennessee valley from Town Creek to Tuscumbia with the flames of burning dwellings, granaries, stables, and fences. In June Colonel Cornyn reports that in a raid from Corinth to Florence he had destroyed cotton factories, tanyards, all the corn-cribs in sight, searched every house in Florence, burned several residences, and carried off 200 mules and horses. A few days later General Stanley raided from Tennessee to Huntsville and carried off cattle and supplies, but did not lay waste the country. General Buell did all that he could to restrain his subordinates, but often to no avail. After Sherman took charge affairs grew steadily worse. In a remarkable letter giving his views in the matter he says: "The government of the United States has in north Alabama any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war, to take their lives, their houses, their lands, their everything, because they cannot deny that war exists there, and war is simply power unrestrained by constitution or compact. If they want eternal warfare, well and good. We will accept the issue and dispossess them and put our friends in possession. To those who submit to the rightful law and authority all gentleness and forbearance, but to the petulant and persistent secessionists, why, death is mercy and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better. Satan and the rebellious saint of heaven were allowed a continuance of existence in hell merely to swell their just punishment." He referred to the fact that in Europe, whence the principles of war were derived, wars were between the armies, the people remaining practically neutral, so that their property remained unmolested. However, this present war was, he said, between peoples, and the invading army was entitled to all it could get from the people. He cited as a like instance the dispossessing of the people of north Ireland during the reign of William and Mary. After this no restraint on the plundering and persecution of Confederate non-combatants was even attempted, and hundreds of families from north Alabama "refugeed" to south Alabama.

General Sherman wrote to one of his generals, "You may send notice to Florence that if Forrest invades Tennessee from that direction, the town will be burned; and if it occurs, you will remove the inhabitants north of the Ohio River and burn the town and Tuscumbia also." All through this section fences were gone, fields grew up in bushes, and weeds, residences were destroyed, farm stock had disappeared. People who lived in the Black Belt report that Wilson's raiders ate up all the cooked provisions wherever they went, taking all the meat, meal, and flour to their next camping-place, where they would often throw away wagon loads of provisions. Frequently the meal and flour that could not be taken was strewn along the road. The mills were burned, and some families for three months after the close of the war lived on corn cracked in a mortar. All the horses and mules were taken; and only a few oxen were left to work the crops.

Governor Parsons said that Wilson's men were a week in destroying the property around Selma. Three weeks after, as Parsons himself was a witness, it was with difficulty that one could travel from Planterville to Selma on account of the dead horses and mules. The night marches of the enemy in the Black Belt were lighted by the flames of burning houses. Until this raid only the counties of north Alabama had suffered.

Wilson had destroyed during this raid 2 gunboats; 99,000 small arms and much artillery; 10 iron works; 7 foundries; 8 machine shops; 5 rolling mills; the University buildings; many county court-houses and public buildings; 3 arsenals; a naval foundry and navy yard; 5 steamboats; a powder magazine and mills; 35 locomotives and 565 cars; 3 large railroad bridges and many smaller ones; 275,000 bales of cotton; much private property along the line of march, many magazines of stores; and had subsisted his army on the country. Trowbridge, who passed through Alabama in the fall of 1865, said that Wilson's route could be traced by burnt gin-houses dotting the way. Three other armies marched through the state in 1865, burning and destroying.

The Federals took horses and mules, cattle and hogs, corn and meat, gold and silver plate, jewellery, and other valuables. Aged citizens were tortured by "bummers" to force them to tell of hidden treasure. Some were swung up by the neck until nearly dead. Straggling bands of Federals committed depredations over the country. Houses were searched, mattresses were cut to pieces, trunks, bureaus, wardrobes, and chests were broken open and their contents turned out. Much furniture was broken and ruined. Families of women and children were left without a meal, and many homes were burned. Cattle and stock were wantonly killed. What could not be carried away was burned and destroyed.

Though two-thirds of the state was untouched by the enemy two months before the close of hostilities, yet when the surrender came. Alabama was as thoroughly destroyed as Georgia or South Carolina in Sherman's track.

SEC. 2. MILITARY ORGANIZATION

Alabama Soldiers: Numbers and Character

The exact number of Confederate soldiers enlisted in Alabama cannot be ascertained. The original records were lost or destroyed, and duplicates were never completed. There were on the rolls infantry regiments numbered from 1 to 65, but the 52d and 64th were never organized. Of the 14 cavalry regiments, numbered from 1 to 12, two organizations were numbered 9. There was one battalion of artillery, afterwards transferred to the regular service, and 18 batteries.

The Superintendent of the Confederate Bureau of Conscription estimated that according to the census of 1860 there were in Alabama, from 1861 to 1864, 106,000 men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, and of these, more than 8000 had been regularly exempted during the year 1864, all former exemptions having been revoked by act of Congress, February 17, 1864. Livermore's estimate, based on the census of 1860, was: There were in Alabama between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, 99,967 men, and in the entire Confederacy there were 265,000 between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. Of the latter, a rough estimate would place Alabama's proportion about one-tenth of the whole, that is, about 26,500. Those men over forty-five who later became liable to military duty he estimates at 20,000, that is, about 2000 in Alabama. Thus there were in Alabama, in 1861, not allowing for deaths, 127,467 persons who would become subject to military service unless exempted. Livermore places the number of boys from ten to twelve years of age and of men from forty-seven to fifty, in the Confederacy in 1861, at 300,000, or about 30,000 in Alabama. These would become liable to service in the state militia before 1865. In 1861 the governor stated that by October 7 there had been 27,000 enlistments in the various organizations. Several of these commands were enrolled for short terms of three months, six months, or one year. Before November, 1862, there had been 60,000 enlistments. Included in this number were several thousand re?nlistments and transfers. At the end of 1863, when enlistment and reorganization had practically ceased, there had been 90,857 enlistments of all kinds from Alabama. For two years troops were organized in Alabama much faster than they could be supplied with arms. For months some of the new regiments waited for equipment. Four thousand men at Huntsville were in service several months before arms could be procured, and several infantry regiments were drilled as artillery for a year before muskets were to be had.

Before the close of 1863, Alabama had placed in the Confederate service about all the men that could be sent. The organization of new regiments by original enlistment practically ceased with the fall of 1862. In 1863, only three regiments were thus organized, and two of these were composed of conscripts and men attracted by the special privileges offered. The other regiments, formed after the summer of 1862, were made by consolidating smaller commands that were already in service. The few small regiments of reserves called out in 1864 and 1865 and given regular designations saw little or no service. Those few who were made liable to service by the conscript law and who entered the army at all, as a rule went as volunteers and avoided the conscript camps. The strength of the Alabama regiments came from central and south Alabama, for the full military strength of north Alabama could not be utilized on account of invasion by the enemy. At first there were many small commands--companies and battalions--which were raised in a short time and sent at once to the front before a regimental organization could be effected. Later these were united to form regiments. Nearly all the higher numbered infantry regiments and more than half of the cavalry regiments were formed in this way. The first regiments raised and the strongest in numbers were sent to Virginia. To these went also the largest number of the recruits secured by the recruiting officers sent out by the regiments. On an average, about 350 recruits or transfers were secured by each Alabama regiment in Virginia, though some had almost none. There were numbers of persons who obtained authority to raise new commands for service near their homes, and in order to fill the ranks of their regiments and companies they would offer special inducements of furloughs and home stations. The cavalry and artillery branches of the service were popular and secured many men needed in the infantry regiments. Each commander of a separate company or battalion desired to raise his force to a regiment, and it was to the interest of the state to have as many organizations as possible in the field as its quota. A better show was thus made on paper. Such conditions prevented the recruitment of old regiments, especially those in the armies that surrendered under Johnston and Taylor. Consequently the regiments in the Western Army were, as a rule, much smaller than the ones in the Army of Northern Virginia, to which recruits were sent instead of new regiments.

In each infantry and cavalry regiment there were ten companies. The original strength of each company was from 64 to 100. Later the number was fixed at 104 to the company for infantry, 72 for cavalry, and 70 in the artillery. After the formation of new commands had practically ceased, the number for each company of infantry was raised to 125 men, 150 in the artillery, and 80 in the cavalry. The original strength of each infantry regiment was, therefore, from 640 to 1000, not including officers; of cavalry, 600 to 720. A battery of artillery seems to have had any number from 70 to 150, though usually the smaller number. The size of the regiments varied greatly. Colonel Fowler reported that to February 1, 1865, 27,022 men had joined the 20 Alabama regiments in Virginia, an average of 1351 men to the regiment. Brewer gives the total enrolment of 15 regiments in the Army of Northern Virginia as 21,694, an average of 1446 to the regiment. Four of these regiments had an enrolment of less than 1200; so it is evident that the other 5, not given by Brewer, must have averaged about 1265 to the regiment. These numbers include transfers, details, and re?nlistments, the exact number of which it is impossible to ascertain. Brewer lists the transfers and discharges from 15 regiments at 4398, an average of 293 each, of which about one-third seem to have been transfers. There were also many re?nlistments from disbanded organizations. Both Brewer and Fowler count each enlistment as a different man and arrive at about the same results.

The enrolment of 8 Alabama regiments in Johnston's army, as given by Brewer, amounted to 8300, an average to the regiment of 1037. It was the practice, in 1864 and 1865, to unite two or more weaker regiments into one. No Alabama regiments in Virginia were so united, and of the 8 in the Western Army, whose enrolment is given by Brewer, only 1 was afterward united with another. It would then seem that the enrolment of the strongest regiments is known. The total number of enlistments in the Alabama commands in Virginia was, according to Fowler, about 30,000, and these were in 20 infantry regiments, and a few smaller commands. In the armies surrendered by Johnston and Taylor there were 38 Alabama infantry regiments, and 13 of these had been consolidated on account of their small numbers. Eight of them which remained separate and which must have been stronger than the ones united had enrolled an average of 1037 . Thirty-eight regiments of this strength would give a total enrolment of 39,406. This number, added to Fowler's estimate of 27,022 in the Army of Northern Virginia, will give 66,428 enlistments of all kinds, for the infantry arm of the service. Add to this 3000 for the 3 regiments of reserves called out in 1864, and the total is 69,428 enlistments in the infantry.

There were 14 cavalry regiments, 7 of which, and possibly more, were formed by the consolidation of smaller commands already in service. The cavalry regiments did not enter the service as early as the infantry, only 1 regiment being organized in 1861. The original strength of each regiment, as has been said, was from 600 to 720. All these regiments served in the commands surrendered by Johnston and Taylor, where recruits were scarce, so 1000 to the regiment is a very large estimate of total enrolment. However, this would give 14,000 in the cavalry regiments.

Of artillery, there were 19 batteries and 1 battalion of 6 batteries, making 25 batteries in all, with an enrolment ranging from 70 to 150 in each. A total enrolment of 3750, or 150 to each battery, would be a large estimate.

Fowler reported about 3000 enlistments in the various smaller commands from Alabama in the Army of Northern Virginia. An additional 2000 would more than account for all similar scattering commands in the other armies.

The total enrolment may then be estimated:--

This total includes many transfers and re?nlistments, which can be only roughly estimated. In the Army of Northern Virginia 464 resigned, 245 were retired, 3639 were discharged, 1815 were transferred to other commands, and 1666 deserted or were unaccounted for. Those who resigned--as a rule to accept higher positions--re?ntered the service. Almost all of those who retired or were discharged had to enter the reserves, and many of them again became liable to service. Numbers of soldiers were accustomed to leave one command and go to another without any formality of transfer. Deserters who were driven back to the army nearly always chose to enter other regiments than their own. There were numbers of transfers from the cavalry to the infantry, for each cavalryman had to furnish his own horse, and, should it be killed or die and the soldier be unable to secure another, he was sent to an infantry regiment. There were also smaller infantry organizations, which were mounted and merged into the cavalry regiments. Half of the enlistments in the artillery came from the infantry. One regiment at one time lost 100 men in this way, and it has been estimated that one-fifth of the Alabama soldiers served in more than one command. Counting each name on the rolls as one man, as Brewer and Fowler do, it is difficult to see how more than 90,000 enlistments can be counted, and from this total must be deducted several thousand for transfers and re?nlistments. Miller's estimate of a deduction of one-fifth for names counted twice would make the total number of different men about 75,000, which is probably about the correct number. Not only were the same names counted twice, and even oftener in different commands, but sometimes in the same companies and regiments they were counted more than once. It was to the interest of local and state authorities to have each enlistment counted as a different man, and this was invariably done. Five of the early regiments were reorganized and re?nlisted, and thus 5000 at least were added to the total enrolment without securing a single recruit. The three-year regiments re?nlisted in 1864, and here again were extra thousands of enlistments to be added to the former total. There were also 19 infantry regiments which were formed by the reorganization of former commands that had already been counted, and upon re?nlistment for the war they were again counted. In this same way 7 regiments at least of cavalry were formed. this way it is possible to count up a total enlistment from Alabama of about 120,000. There is no method which will even approximate correctness by which the total number of enlistments may be reduced to enlistments for a certain term, as three years or four years. The history of every enlistment must first be known.

During the early months of 1865 a movement was started to enroll negroes as Confederate soldiers, and a number of officers, among whom was John T. Morgan, received permission to raise negro troops. The conference of governors at Augusta in 1864 recommended the arming of slaves, but Governor Watts asked the Alabama legislature to disapprove such a movement. An enthusiastic meeting of citizens, held in Mobile, February 19, 1865, declared that the war must be prosecuted "to victory or death," and that 100,000 negroes should be placed in the field. It was too late, however, for success. Wilson, on his raid, picked up the Confederate negro troops at Selma, and took them with him. In 1862, the "Creoles" of Mobile applied for permission to enlist in a body. They were mulattoes, but were free by the treaties with France in 1803 and with Spain in 1819, were property holders, often owning slaves, and were an orderly, respectable class, true to the South and anxious to fight for the Confederacy. The Secretary of War was not friendly to the proposal, but in November, 1862, the legislature of Alabama authorized their enlistment for the defence of Mobile. A year later, at the urgent request of General Maury, they were received into the Confederate service as heavy artillery.

The Alabama troops in the Confederate service made a notably good record. The flower of the Alabama army served with Lee in Virginia, but nearly as good were the Alabama troops in the western armies. Brewer says they moved "high and haughty in the face of death." The regiments of reserves raised late in the war and stationed within the state were not very good. Yet there were instances of regiments, with bad reputation when stationed near home, making splendid records when sent to the front. The spirit of the troops at the front was high to the last. In 1864 an Alabama regiment re?nlisted for the war, with the oath that they would "live on bread and go barefoot before they would leave the flag under which they had fought for three years." On the morning of April 9, 1865, the Sixtieth Alabama , then about 165 strong, captured a Federal battery. Fowler, in his report in 1865, asserts that Alabama sent more troops into the service than any other state; also that she sent more troops in proportion to her population than any other state. "I am certain too," he says, "that when General Lee surrendered his army, the representation from Alabama on the field that day was inferior to no other southern state in numbers, and surely not in gallantry."

Union Troops from Alabama

To the Union army Alabama furnished about 3000 regular enlistments. Of these 2000 were white men. It is not likely that there were many more, since in 1900 there were in Alabama only 3649 persons, northerners, negroes, and all, drawing pensions, and some of these on account of the Indian and Mexican wars. The white Union troops served in the First Alabama Union Cavalry, in the First Alabama and Tennessee Cavalry , Kennamer's Scouts , and in northern regiments--principally those from Indiana. The report of the Secretary of War for 1864-1865 says that no white regiments were regularly enlisted in Alabama for the Union army. But this is evidently not correct, since the report for 1866 says that there were 2576 enlistments in Alabama for various periods of service.

Of negro regiments in the Union army, there were the First Alabama Volunteers, afterward known as the Fifth United States Colored Infantry, the Second Alabama Volunteers , and the First Alabama Colored Artillery, afterward known as the Sixth United States Heavy Artillery, which served at Fort Pillow. Late in 1864 General Lorenzo Thomas reported that he had recently organized three regiments of colored infantry in Alabama, and Wilson organized several other negro regiments in the state in 1865. Many negroes from north Alabama went into various negro organizations, and were credited to the northern states, the official records showing only 4969 negro enlistments credited directly to Alabama. A conservative estimate would be from 2000 to 2500 whites and 10,000 negroes enlisted in Alabama, not counting those who were enrolled in the spring of 1865. The white Union soldiers from Alabama were mostly poor men from the mountain counties of north Alabama. The Union troops from Alabama received no bounty.

The Militia System

The militia system of Alabama in 1861 existed only in the statute books, and in the persons of a few brigadiers and a major-general, whose entire duty had consisted in wearing uniforms at the inauguration of a governor and ever thereafter bearing military titles. A series of Arabic numbers, something more than a hundred, was assigned to the militia regiments that were unorganized, but which, under favorable circumstances, might be enrolled and called out. The county was the unit. To each county was assigned one regiment or more according to the white population. Several counties formed a militia district under a brigadier-general, and over all was a major-general. Bodies of trained volunteers were not connected with the militia system at all, but these went at once, on the outbreak of war, into the state army, which was soon merged into the Confederate army.

In theory the militia consisted of all the male citizens of Alabama of military age. The enlistments for war service soon reduced the material from which militia regiments could be formed, and the system broke down before it was tried. A few regiments may have been enrolled in 1861 and 1862, but if so, they at once entered the Confederate service. The Forty-eighth Alabama Militia regiment was ordered out to defend Mobile in 1861, and 00 was appropriated to provide pikes and knives with which to arm them, as it was impossible to get firearms. On March 1, 1862, Governor Shorter appealed to the people to give their shotguns, rifles, bowie-knives, pikes, powder, and lead to state agents, probate judges, sheriffs, and other state officials for the use of the state militia. A few days later he ordered out, for the defence of Mobile and the coast, the militia from the river counties and the southwestern counties--eighteen counties in all. But the militia failed to appear. It seems that the governor expected a hearty response from the people. He asked for too much, and got nothing. On March 12, 1862, he again ordered out the militia, this time specifying the regiments by number. But again the militia failed to respond. The fact was, there was no longer any militia; the officers and men had gone, or were preparing to go, into the Confederate service. Many of the militia regiments could not have mustered a dozen men, and it is doubtful if there was a muster-roll of a militia regiment in all Alabama. In May, 1862, the governor, recognizing that the militia system was worthless as a means of raising troops for home defence, issued a proclamation asking the people to form volunteer organizations. The response, as he said, "was not prompt." The legislature of that year, not seeing the necessity, refused to reorganize the militia so as to give the governor any effective control. The people seem not to have been worried by any fear of invasion, and many thought that organization into militia companies was merely preliminary to entering the Confederate service. Some did not wish to go until they had to do so, others preferred to go at once to the Confederate army. It appears that all persons, for various reasons, disliked militia service.

The various organizations mentioned in the War Records, the Junior Reserves, Senior Reserves, Mobile Regiment, Home Guards, Local Defence Corps, and others, were, except the reserves, volunteer organizations for local defence, and all that saw active service before 1865, except the Home Guards, were absorbed into the Confederate organization. The stupid conduct of the legislature during the last two years of the war in failing to provide for the defence of the state cannot be too strongly condemned. The final result would have been the same, but a strong force of militia would have enabled Governor Watts to execute the laws in all parts of the state, and to protect the families of loyal citizens from outrage by tories and deserters.

SEC. 3. CONSCRIPTION AND EXEMPTION

Confederate Enrolment Laws

In the spring of 1862, the Confederate Congress passed the Enrolment Act, by which all white men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five were made liable to military service at the call of the President, and those already in service were retained. The President was authorized to employ state officials to enroll the men made subject to duty, provided the governor of the state gave his consent; otherwise he was to employ Confederate officials. The conscripts thus secured were to be assigned to the state commands already in the field until these organizations were recruited to their full strength. Substitutes were allowed under such regulations as the Secretary of War might prescribe. Five days later, a law was passed exempting certain classes of persons from the operations of the Enrolment Act. These were: Confederate and state officials, mail-carriers, ferrymen on post-office routes, pilots, telegraph operators, miners, printers, ministers, college professors, teachers with twenty pupils or more, teachers of the deaf, dumb, and blind, hospital attendants, one druggist to each drug store, and superintendents and operatives in cotton and wool factories. In the fall of 1862, the Enrolment law was extended to include all white men from thirty-five to forty-five years of age and all who lacked a few months of being eighteen years of age. They were to be enrolled for three years, the oldest, if not needed, being left until the last.

At this time was begun the practice, which virtually amounted to exemption, of making special details from the army to perform certain kinds of skilled labor. The first details thus made were to manufacture shoes for the army. The list of those who might claim exemption, in addition to those named in the act of April 21, 1862, was extended to include the following: state militia officers, state and Confederate clerks in the civil service, railway employees who were not common laborers, steamboat employees, one editor and the necessary printers for each newspaper, those morally opposed to war, provided they furnished a substitute or paid 0 into the treasury, physicians, professors, and teachers who had been engaged in the profession for two years or more, government artisans, mechanics, and other employees, contractors and their employees furnishing arms and supplies to the state or to the Confederacy, factory owners, shoemakers, tanners, blacksmiths, wagon makers, millers, and engineers. The artisans and manufacturers were granted exemption from military service provided the products of their labor were sold at not more than seventy-five per cent profit above the cost of production. On every plantation where there were twenty or more negroes one white man was entitled to exemption as overseer.

In the spring of 1863 mail contractors and drivers of post-coaches were exempted; and it was ordered that those exempted under the so-called "twenty-negro" law should pay 0 into the Confederate treasury; also, that such state officials as were exempted by the governor might be also exempted by the Confederate authorities. The law permitting the hiring of substitutes by men liable to service was repealed on December 28, 1863, and a few days later even those who had furnished substitutes were made subject to military duty.

Policy of the State in Regard to Conscription

To return to 1861. The state legislature, when providing for the state army, authorized the governor to exempt from militia duty all railway, express, steamboat, and telegraph employees, but even the fire companies had to serve as militia. The operation of the enrolment law stripped the land of men of militia age, and on November 17, 1862, the legislature ordered to duty on the public roads men from sixteen to eighteen years of age, and forty-five to fifty-five, and later all from sixteen to fifty as well as all male slaves and free negroes from fourteen to sixty years of age. Militia officers between the ages of eighteen and forty-five were declared subject to the enrolment acts of Congress, as were also justices of the peace, notaries public, and constables.

Yet, instead of making an effective organization of the militia, the legislature in 1863 proceeded to frame a law of exemptions patterned after that of the Confederacy. It released from militia duty all persons over forty-five years of age, county treasurers, physicians of seven years' practice or who were in the public service, ministers, teachers of three years' standing, one blacksmith in each beat, the city police and fire companies, penitentiary guards, general administrators who had been in service five years, Confederate agents, millers, railroad employees, steamboat officials, overseers, managers of foundries, salt makers who made as much as ten bushels a day and who sold it for not more than per bushel. Besides, the governor could make special exemptions. In 1864 millers who charged not more than one-eighth for toll were exempted. It will be seen that in some respects the state laws go farther in exemption than the Confederate laws, and thus were in conflict with them. But it must be remembered that the Confederacy had already stripped the country of nearly all the able-bodied men who did not evade duty. To this time, however, there was no conflict between the state and Confederate authorities in regard to conscription. An act was also passed providing for the reorganization of the penitentiary guards, and only those not subject to conscription were retained. A joint resolution of August 29, 1863, called upon Congress to decrease the list of exemptions, as many clerks and laborers were doing work that could be done by negroes. At the end of the year 1863 the legislature asked that the conscript law be strictly enforced by Congress.

During the year 1864 Governor Watts had much trouble with the Confederate enrolling officers who insisted upon conscripting his volunteer and militia organizations, whether they were subject to duty under the laws or not. The authorities at Richmond held that while a state might keep "troops of war" over which the Confederacy could have no control, yet the state militia was subject to all the laws of Congress. "Troops of war," as the Secretary of War explained, would be troops in active and permanent service, and hence virtually Confederate troops. A state with troops of that description would be very willing to give them up to the Confederacy to save expense. Thus we find the legislature of Alabama asking the President to receive and pay certain irregular organizations which had been used to support the Conscript Bureau. The legislature, now somewhat disaffected, showed its interest in the operations of the enrolling officers by an act providing that conscript officials who forced exempts into the Confederate service should be liable to indictment and punishment by a fine of 00 to 00 and imprisonment of from six months to two years. It went a step further and nullified the laws of Congress by declaring that state officials, civil and military, were not subject to conscription by the Confederate authorities.

Effect of the Enrolment Laws

Few good soldiers were obtained by conscription, and the system, as it was organized in Alabama, did more harm than good to the Confederacy. The passage of the first law, however, had one good effect. During the winter of 1861-1862, there had been a reaction from the enthusiastic war feeling of the previous summer. Those who thought it would be only a matter of weeks to overrun the North now saw their mistake. Many of the people still had no doubt that the North would be glad to make peace and end the war if the government at Richmond were willing. Numbers, therefore, saw no need of more fighting, and hence did not volunteer. Thousands left the army and went home. A measure like the enrolment act was necessary to make the people realize the actual situation. Upon the passage of the law all the loyal population liable to service made preparations to go to the front before being conscripted, which was deemed a disgrace, and the close of the year 1862 saw practically all of them in the army. Those who entered after 1862 were boys and old men. Many not subject to service volunteered, so that when the age limit was extended but few more were secured.

Great dissatisfaction was expressed among the people at the enrolment law. Some thought that it was an attack upon the rights of the states, and the irritating manner in which it was enforced aroused, in some localities, intense popular indignation. Conscription being considered disgraceful, many who would have been glad for various good reasons to remain at home a few months longer went at once into service to escape conscription. Yet some loyal and honest citizens found it disastrous to leave their homes and business without definite arrangements for the safety and support of their families. Such men suffered much annoyance from the enrolling officers, in spite of the fact that the law was intended for their protection. The conscript officials, often men of bad character, persecuted those who were easy to find, while neglecting the disloyal and refractory who might make trouble for them. In some sections such weak conduct came near resulting in local insurrections; this was especially the case in Randolph County in 1862. The effect of the law was rather to stop volunteering in the state organizations and reporting to camps of instructions, since all who did either were classed as conscripts. Not wishing to bear the odium of being conscripted, many thousands in 1862 and 1863 went directly into the regular service.

While the conscript law secured few, if any, good soldiers who would not have joined the army without it, it certainly served as a reminder to the people that all were needed, and as a stimulus to volunteering. Three classes of people suffered from its operations: those rightfully exempted, who were constantly annoyed by the enrolling officers; those soon to become liable to service, who were not allowed to volunteer in organizations of their own choice; and "deadheads" and malcontents who did not intend to fight at all if they could keep from it. It was this last class that made nearly all the complaints about conscription, and it was they whom the enrolling officers left alone because they were so troublesome.

The defects in the working of conscription are well set forth in a letter from a correspondent of President Davis in December, 1862. In this letter it was asserted that the conscript law had proven a failure in Mississippi and Alabama, since it had stopped the volunteering. Governor Shorter was reported to have said that the enforcement of it had been "a humbug and a farce." The writer declared that the enrolling officers chosen were frequently of bad character; that inefficient men were making attempts to secure "bomb-proof" offices in order to avoid service in the army; and that the exemption of slave owners by the "twenty-negro law" had a bad influence upon the poorer classes. He also declared that the system of substitutes was bad, for many men were on the hunt for substitutes, and others liable to duty were working to secure exemptions in order to serve as substitutes, while large numbers of men connected with the army managed in this way to keep away from the fighting. He was sure, he said, that there were too many hangers-on about the officers of high rank, and that it was believed that social position, wealth, and influence served to get young men good staff positions. Another evil complained of was that "paroled" men scattered to their homes and never heard of their exchange. To a conscript officer whose duty it was to look after them they said that they were "paroled," and he passed them by. The officers were said to be entirely too lenient with the worthless people and too rigorous with the better classes.

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