Chapter III: Military and Political Events (2)

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 $6000 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.[163] 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.[164] 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.[165] 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.

December 22, 1862, the governor issued a proclamation, in which, after mentioning the tardy response to his May proclamation and the failure of the legislature to reorganize the system, he again asked the people to volunteer in companies for home defence.[166] He begged the people to drive those who were shirking service to their duty by the force of public scorn. He requested that business houses be closed early in order to give time for drill. The response to this was the same as to his previous proclamation. There was no longer any material for a militia organization. Early in 1863, and in some sections even before, the need began to be felt for a militia force to execute the laws. Under the direction of the governor, small commands were organized here and there of those who were not likely to become subject to service in the Confederate army. These were state and Confederate officials, young boys, and sometimes old men. These organizations were later a source of constant conflict between the state authorities and the Confederate enrolling officers, who wanted to take such commands bodily into the Confederate service, and who usually did so with the full consent of most of the men and to the great indignation of the governor.[167] In August, 1863, the legislature finally passed a law to reorganize the militia system, or rather to establish a new system. By the law an official in each county, appointed by the governor, was to enroll as first-class militia all males under seventeen and over forty-five years of age, including all state and Confederate civil officials, and those physically disqualified for service in the Confederate army. The second class was to consist of those not in the first class, that is, of men between seventeen and forty-five years of age. But men of the second class were subject to enrolment by Confederate conscript officers, and consisted of the few thousand who were specially exempted by the Confederate authorities. Those of the first class who wished to do so might enroll in the second class. The governor was given the usual power over the militia, but it was ordered that the first-class militia was not to go beyond the limits of the county to which it belonged.[168] Presumably the second class might be ordered beyond the county limits, but there were so few in their class that they were not organized. The first-class militia in each county was under a commandant of reserves, militia now being called reserves. He had the power to call it out to repel invasion and execute the laws. Jealousy of Confederate authority had caused the legislature to take legal means of making the militia worthless to the Confederacy, and useful only for local defence and for executing the state laws in particular localities.[169] Still, the system seems to have been practically useless, and the governor continued to organize small irregular commands to execute the laws and to furnish military escorts to civil officials. As has been stated, such commands were highly approved of by the Confederate enrolling officers, who eagerly persuaded them to join the Confederate army, and thus called forth strong remonstrances from Governor Watts. The War Department reasoned that a state could keep troops of war which were not subject to absorption in the Confederate service, but that the militia were subject to the superior claims of the Confederacy.[170] February 6, 1864, Governor Watts, in an address to the people, declared that a raid into the state was threatened and called upon young and old to volunteer for the defence of the state.[171] The reserve system was now worthless. Few of the regiments had more than fifty men, many had none, and the governor was powerless to use them beyond the limits of their respective counties. The state was at the mercy of any invading force, and Rousseau's Raid, through the heart of the state, showed the woful condition of affairs. On October 7, 1864, the legislature passed an act which prohibited Confederate army officers from commanding the reserves. It was again ordered that the first-class reserves should not serve beyond the limits of the county to which they belonged. At the same time, permission was granted to the harassed citizens of Dale and Henry counties to organize themselves to protect their homes, provided they did so under the direction of the commandant of the first-class militia. Perhaps the legislature was afraid that, if left to themselves, they might cross the county line, or choose a Confederate officer to lead them. In December, 1864, when north Alabama was almost entirely overrun by tories, deserters, and Federals, the citizens of Marion County were authorized to organize into squads and protect themselves.[172] Still the legislature refused to make an effective reorganization of the militia. When the spring campaign in 1865 began, Governor Watts appealed to the people to do what the legislature had failed to do. The first-class militia could not, he said, be ordered beyond the limits of their counties, and in three congressional districts in north Alabama it had not been and, by law, could not be, organized. He estimated that 30,000 men were enrolled in the first-class militia, of whom 4000 were boys, and to the latter he made the appeal to defend the state. Evidently the remaining 26,000 men were, in his estimation, not worth much as soldiers. However, he called upon all first-class militia to volunteer as second class.[173] A few hundred responded to this appeal, and all of them who saw active service were with Forrest in front of Wilson.

The various organizations mentioned in the War Records, the Junior Reserves, Senior Reserves, Mobile Regiment, Home Guards, Local Defence Corps,[174] 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.[175] 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.[176] 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.[177] 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.[178]

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.[179] 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 $500 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.[180]

In the spring of 1863 mail contractors and drivers of post-coaches were exempted;[181] and it was ordered that those exempted under the so-called "twenty-negro" law should pay $500 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.[182]

A law of February 17, 1864,[183] provided that all soldiers between the ages of eighteen and forty-five should be retained in service during the war. Those between the ages of seventeen and eighteen, and forty-five and fifty were called into service as a reserve force for the defence of the state. All exemptions were repealed except the following: (1) the members of Congress and of the state legislature, and such Confederate and state officers as the President or the governors might certify to be necessary for the proper administration of government; (2) ministers regularly employed, superintendents, attendants, and physicians of asylums for the deaf, dumb, and blind, insane, and other public hospitals, one editor for each newspaper, public printers, one druggist for each drug store which had been two years in existence, all physicians who had practised seven years, teachers in colleges of at least two years' standing and in schools which had twenty pupils to each teacher; (3) one overseer or agriculturist to each farm upon which were fifteen or more negroes, in case there was no other exempt on the plantation. The object was to leave one white man, and no more, on each plantation, and the owner or overseer was preferred. In return for such exemption, the exempt was bound by bond to deliver to the Confederate authorities, for each slave on the plantation between the ages of sixteen and fifty, one hundred pounds of bacon or its equivalent in produce, which was paid for by the government at prices fixed by the impressment commissioners. In addition, the exempt was to sell his surplus produce at prices fixed by the commissioners. The Secretary of War was authorized to make special details, under the above conditions, of overseers, farmers, or planters, if the public good demanded it; also (4) to exempt the higher officials of railroads and not more than one employee for each mile of road; and (5) mail carriers and drivers. The President was authorized to make details of old men for special service.[184] By an act passed the same day free negroes from eighteen to fifty years of age were made liable to service with the army as teamsters. These acts of February 17, 1864, were the last Confederate legislation of importance in regard to conscription and exemption. During the year 1864 the Confederate authorities devoted their energies to construing away all exemptions possible, and to absorbing the state reserve forces into the Confederate army.

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.[185] 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.[186] Militia officers between the ages of eighteen and forty-five were declared subject to the enrolment acts of Congress,[187] as were also justices of the peace, notaries public, and constables.[188]

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 $15 per bushel. Besides, the governor could make special exemptions.[189] In 1864 millers who charged not more than one-eighth for toll were exempted.[190] 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.[191] 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.[192]

On the part of the state rights people, there was much opposition to the enrolment or conscription laws on the ground that they were unconstitutional. Several cases were brought before the state supreme court, and all were decided in favor of the constitutionality of the laws; furthermore, it was decided that the courts and judicial officers of the state had no jurisdiction on _habeas corpus_ to discharge from the custody of a Confederate enrolling officer persons who had been conscripted under the law of Congress.[193] A test case was carried to the state supreme court, which decided that a person who had conscientious scruples against bearing arms might pay for a substitute in the state militia and claim exemption from state service, but if conscripted he was not exempted from the Confederate service unless he belonged to the religious denominations specially exempted by the act of Congress.[194] The court also declared constitutional the Confederate law which provided that when a substitute became subject to military duty his principal was thereby rendered liable to service.[195] In 1864 the supreme court held that the state had a right to subject to militia service persons exempted by the Confederate authorities as bonded agriculturists under the acts of February 17, 1864, and that only those overseers were granted exemption from militia service under the act of Congress in 1863 who at the time were not subject to militia duty, and not those exempted from Confederate service by the later laws,[196] and that the clause in the act of Congress passed February 17, 1864, repealing and revoking all exemptions, was constitutional.[197] In other cases the court held that a person regularly enrolled and sworn into the Confederate service could not raise any question, on _habeas corpus_, of his assignment to any particular command or duty,[198] but that the state courts could discharge on _habeas corpus_ from Confederate enrolling officers persons held as conscripts, who were exempted under Confederate laws;[199] that the Confederacy might reassert its rights to the military service of a citizen who was enrolled as a conscript and, after producing a discharge for physical disability, had enlisted in the state militia service;[200] and finally, that the right of the Confederacy to the military service of a citizen was paramount to the right of the state.[201]

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,[202] 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.[203] 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 $1000 to $6000 and imprisonment of from six months to two years.[204] 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.[205]

Effect of the Enrolment Laws

Few good soldiers were obtained by conscription,[206] and the system, as it was organized in Alabama,[207] 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.[208] 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.[209] 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.[210] 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.[211]

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: (1) those rightfully exempted, who were constantly annoyed by the enrolling officers; (2) those soon to become liable to service, who were not allowed to volunteer in organizations of their own choice; and (3) "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.[212] 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.[213]

Exemption from Service

After the passage of the enrolment laws, every man with excessive regard for the integrity of his person and for his comfort began to secure exemption from service. In north Alabama men of little courage and patriotism lost confidence after the invasions of the Federals, and resorted to every expedient to escape conscription. Strange and terrible diseases were developed, and in all sections of the state health began to break down.[214] It was the day of certificates,--for old age, rheumatism, fits, blindness, and various physical disabilities.[215] Various other pretexts were given for staying away from the army, while some men hid out in the woods. The governor asked the people to drive such persons to their duty.[216] There was never so much skilled labor in the South as now. Harness making, shoe making, charcoal burning, carpentering--all these and numerous other occupations supposed to be in support of the cause secured exemption. Running a tanyard was a favorite way of escaping service. A pit was dug in the corner of the back yard, a few hides secured, carefully preserved, and never finished,--for more hides might not be available; then the tanner would be no longer exempt. There were purchasing agents, sub-purchasing agents, and sub-sub-agents, cattle drivers, tithe gatherers, agents of the Nitre Bureau, agents to examine political prisoners,[217] and many other Confederate and state agents of various kinds.[218] The class left at home for the enrolling officers to contend with, especially after 1862, was a source of weakness, not of strength, to the Confederate cause. The best men had gone to the army, and these people formed the public. Their opinion was public opinion, and with few exceptions the home stayers were a sorry lot. From them came the complaint about the favoritism toward the rich. The talk of a "rich man's war and a poor man's fight" originated with them, as well as the criticism of the "twenty-negro law." In the minds of the soldiers at the front there was no doubt that the slaveholder and the rich man were doing their full share.[219]

Very few of the slaveholders and wealthy men tried to escape service; but when one did, he attracted more attention and called forth sterner denunciation than ten poor men in similar cases would have done. In fact, few able-bodied men tried to secure exemption under the "twenty-negro law." It would have been better for the Confederacy if more planters had stayed at home to direct the production of supplies, and the fact was recognized in 1864,[220] when a "fifteen-negro law" was passed by the Congress, and other exemptions of planters and overseers were encouraged.[221]

There is no doubt that those who desired to remain quietly at home--to be neutral, so to speak--found it hard to evade the conscript officers. One of these declared that the enrolling officers "burned the woods and sifted the ashes for conscripts." Another who had been caught in the sifting process deserted to the enemy at Huntsville. He was asked, "Do they conscript close over the river?" "Hell, stranger, I should think they do; they take every man who has not been dead more than two days."[222] But the "hill-billy" and "sand-mountain" conscripts were of no service when captured; there were not enough soldiers in the state to keep them in their regiments. The Third Alabama Regiment of Reserves ran away almost in a body. There were fifteen or twenty old men in each county as a supporting force to the Conscript Bureau, and they had old guns, some of which would not shoot, and ammunition that did not fit.[223] Thus the best men went into the army, many of them never to return, and a class of people the country could well have spared survived to assist a second time in the ruin of their country in the darker days of Reconstruction. Often the "fire-eating, die-in-the-last-ditch" radical of 1861 who remained at home "to take care of the ladies" became an exempt, a "bomb-proof" or a conscript officer, and later a "scalawag."

Some escaped war service by joining the various small independent and irregular commands formed for frontier service by those officers who found field duty too irksome. Though these irregular bodies were, as we have seen, gradually absorbed by the regular organizations, yet during their day of strength they were most unpleasant defenders. The men sometimes joined in order to have more opportunity for license and plunder, and such were hated alike by friend and foe.

Another kind of irregular organization caused some trouble in another way. Before the extension of the age limits to seventeen and fifty, the governor raised small commands of young boys to assist in the execution of the state laws, no other forces being available. Later, when the Confederate Congress extended its laws to include these, the conscript officers tried to enroll them, but the governor objected. The officers complained that, in order to escape the odium of conscription, the young boys who were subject by law to duty in the reserves evaded that law by going at once into the army, or by joining some command for special duty. They were of the opinion that these boys should be sent to camps of instruction. The governor had ten companies of young men under eighteen years of age raised near Talladega, and really mustered into the Confederate service as irregular troops, before the law of February 17, 1864, was passed. After the passage of the law, the enrolling officers wished to disband these companies and send the men to the reserves. Watts was angered and sharply criticised the whole policy of conscription. He said that much harm was done by the method of the conscript officers; that it was nonsense to take men from the fields and put them in camps of instruction when there were no arms for them, and no active service was intended; they had better stay at home, drill once a week with volunteer organizations, and work the rest of the time; to assemble the farmers in camps for useless drill while the crops were being destroyed was "most egregious folly." The governor also attacked the policy of the Bureau in refusing to allow the enrolment in the same companies of boys under eighteen and men over forty-five.[224] In regard to the attempts to disband his small force of militia in active service, the governor used strong language. To Seddon, the Secretary of War, he wrote in May, 1864: "It must not be forgotten that the states have some rights left, and that the right to troops in the time of war is guaranteed by the Constitution. These rights, on the part of Alabama, I am determined shall be respected. Unless you order the Commandant of Conscripts to stop interfering with [certain volunteer companies] there will be a conflict between the Confederate general [Withers] and the state authorities."[225] Watts carried the day and the Confederate authorities yielded.

The enrolment law provided that state officials should be exempt from enrolment upon presenting a certificate from the governor stating that they were necessary to the proper administration of the government. In November, 1864, Governor Watts complained to General Withers, who commanded the Confederate reserve forces in Alabama, that the conscript officers had been enrolling by force state officials who held certificates from the governor and also from the commandant of conscripts, and, he added: "This state of things cannot long last without a conflict between the Confederate and state authorities. I shall be compelled to protect my state officers with all the forces of the state at my command." The enrolling officers referred him to a decision of the Secretary of War in the case of a state official in Lowndes County,--that by the act of February 17, 1864, all men between the ages of seventeen and fifty were taken at once into the Confederate service, and that state officials elected later could not claim exemption. Governor Watts then wrote to Seddon, "Unless you interfere, there will be a conflict between the Confederate and the state authorities." He denied the right of Confederate officers to conscript state officials elected after February 17, 1864: "I deny such right, and will resist it with all the forces of the state."[226] The Secretary of War replied by commending the Confederate officers for the way in which they had done their duty, insisting that it was not a political nor a constitutional question, but one involving private rights, and that it should be left to the courts. This was receding from the confident ruling made in the case of the Lowndes County man. There was no more dispute and it is to be presumed that the governor retained his officials.[227] No wonder that Colonel Preston, the chief of the Bureau of Conscription, wrote to the Secretary of War that, "from one end of the Confederacy to the other every constituted authority, every officer, every man, and woman was engaged in opposing the enrolling officer in the execution of his duties."[228]

But these officers had only themselves to blame. They pursued a short-sighted, nagging policy, worrying those who were exempt--the state officials and the militia--because they were easy to reach, and neglecting the real conscript material.[229] The work was known to be useless, and the whole system was irritating to the last degree to all who came in contact with it. It was useless because there was little good material for conscription, except in the frontier country where no authority could be exerted. During 1862 and 1863 practically nothing was done by the Bureau in Alabama, and at the end of the latter year, Colonel E. D. Blake, the Superintendent of Special Registration, reported that there were 13,000 men in the state between the ages of seventeen and forty-five, and of these he estimated 4000 were under eighteen years of age, and hence, at that time, beyond the reach of the enrolling officers. More than 8000[230] were exempt under laws and orders. This left, he said, 1000 subject to enrolment. Nowhere, in any of the estimates, are found allowances for those physically and mentally disqualified. The number then exempted in Alabama by medical boards is unknown. In other states this number was sometimes more and sometimes less than the number exempted by law and by order.

A year later, after all exemptions had been revoked, the number disqualified for physical disability by the examining boards amounted to 3933. Besides these there were the lame, the halt, the blind, and the insane, who were so clearly unfit for service that no enrolling officer ever brought them before the medical board. The 4000 between the ages of seventeen and eighteen, and also the 4600 between sixteen and seventeen, came under the enrolment law of February 17, 1864, as also several thousand who were over forty-five. But it is certain that many of these, especially the younger ones, were already in the general service as volunteers. It is also certain that many hundreds of all ages who were liable to service escaped conscription, especially in north Alabama. In a way, their places in the ranks were filled by those who did not become liable to enrolment until 1864, or even not at all, but who volunteered nevertheless.

From April, 1862, to February, 1865, there had been enrolled at the camps in Alabama 14,875 men who had been classed in the reports as conscripts. This included all men who volunteered at the camps, all of military age that the officers could find or catch before they went into the volunteer service, details made as soon as enrolled, irregular commands formed before the men were liable to duty, and a few hundred genuine conscripts who had to be guarded to keep them from running away. It was reported that for two years not a recruit was sent by the Bureau from Alabama to the army of Tennessee or to the Army of Northern Virginia, but that the men were enrolled in the organizations of the state. This means that much of the enrolment of 14,875 was only nominal, and that this number included the regiments sent to the front from Alabama in 1862, after the passage of the Enrolment Act in April. Eighteen regiments were organized in Alabama after that date, in violation of the Enrolment Act, many of the men evading conscription, as the Bureau reported, by going at once into the general service. The number who left in these regiments was estimated at more than 10,000.[231] There was not a single conscript regiment.

It is possible to ascertain the number exempted by law and by order before 1865. A report by Colonel Preston, dated April, 1864, gives the number of exempts in Alabama as 8835 to January, 1864.[232] A month later, all exemptions were revoked.[233] In February, 1865, a complete report places the total number exempted by law and order in Alabama at 10,218, of whom 3933 were exempted by medical boards. The state officials exempted numbered 1333,[234] and Confederate officials, 21; ministers, 726; editors, 33, and their employees, 155; public printers, 3; druggists, 81; physicians, 796; teachers, 352; overseers and agriculturists, 1447; railway officials and employees, 1090; mail carriers and contractors, 60; foreigners, 167; agriculture details, 38; pilots, telegraphers, shoemakers, tanners, and blacksmiths, 86; government contractors, 44; details of artisans and mechanics, 570; details for government service (not specified), 218. There were 1046 men incapable of field service who were assigned to duty in the above details, chiefly in the Conscript Bureau, Quartermaster's Department, and Commissariat.[235] It is certain that many others were exempted by being detailed from service in the army. The list of those pardoned in 1865 and 1866 by President Johnson shows many occupations not mentioned above.

It is interesting to notice the fate of the conscript officers when captured by the Federals. Bradford Hambrick was tried by a military commission in Nashville, Tennessee, in January, 1864, charged with being a Confederate conscript officer and with forcing "peaceable citizens of the United States" in Madison County, Alabama, to enter the Confederate army. He was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor for one year, and to pay a fine of $2000 or serve an additional imprisonment of 1000 days.[236]

To sum up: The early enrolment laws served to stimulate enlistment; the later ones probably had no effect at all except to give the Bureau something to do, and the law officers something on which to exercise their wits. The conscript service also served as an exemption board. It secured few, if any, enlistments that the state could not have secured, and certainly lost more than it gained by harassing the people. The laws were constantly violated by the state; this is proved by the enlistment of eighteen new regiments contrary to the law. It finally drove the state authorities into an attitude of nullification by its construction of the enrolment laws.

Neither the state nor the Confederate government had an efficient machinery for securing enlistments. If there ever were laws regarded only in the breaking, the Enrolment Acts were such laws. The conscripts and exempts, like the deserters, tories, and Peace Society men, are important, not only because they so weakened the Confederacy, but also because they formed the party that would have carried out, or at least begun, Reconstruction according to the plans of Lincoln and Johnson as first proclaimed. Many of these people became "scalawags" later, probably influenced to some extent by the scorn of their neighbors.

SEC. 4. TORIES AND DESERTERS

In Alabama opposition to the Confederate government took two forms. One was the rebellious opposition of the so-called "unionists" or "tories," who later joined with the deserters from the army; the other was the legal or constitutional opposition of the old coöperation or anti-secession party, which maintained an unfriendly attitude toward the Confederate administration, though the great majority of its members were loyal to the southern cause. From this second class arose a so-called "Peace Party," which desired to end the war on terms favorable to the South; and from this, in turn, when later it was known that such terms could not be secured, sprang the semi-treasonable secret order--the "Peace Society." In 1864, the "tories" and the Peace Society began to work together. Peculiar social and political conditions will in part account for the strength and growth of the opposition in two sections of the state far removed from each other--in north Alabama and in southeast Alabama.

Conditions in North Alabama

To the convention of 1861 forty-four members from north Alabama were elected as coöperationists, that is, in favor of a union of the southern states, within the old Union, for the purpose of securing their rights under the Constitution or of securing safe secession. They professed to be afraid of separate state secession as likely to lead to disintegration and war. Thirty-one of these coöperationists voted against the ordinance of secession, and twenty-four of them (mostly members from the northern hill counties) refused to sign the ordinance, though all expressed the intention to submit to the will of the majority, and to give the state their heartiest support. When war came all espoused the Confederate cause.[237] The coöperationist party as a whole supported the Confederacy faithfully, though nearly always in a more or less disapproving spirit toward the administration, both state and Confederate.

North Alabama differed from other portions of the state in many ways. There was no railroad connecting the country north of the mountains with the southern part of the state, and from the northern counties it was a journey of several days to reach the towns in central and south Alabama. Hence there was little intercourse between the people of the two sections, though the seat of government was in the central part of the state; even to-day the intimacy is not close. For years it had been a favorite scheme of Alabama statesmen to build railroads and highways to connect more closely the two sections.[238] Geographically, this northern section of the state belonged to Tennessee. The people were felt to be slightly different in character and sympathies from those of central and south Alabama, and whatever one section favored in public matters was usually opposed by the other. Even in the northern section the population was more or less divided. The people of the valley more closely resembled the west Tennesseeans, the great majority of them being planters, having little in common with the small farmers of the hill and mountain country, who were like the east Tennesseeans. Of the latter the extreme element was the class commonly known as "mountain whites" or "sand-mountain" people. These were the people who gave so much trouble during the war, as "tories," and from whom the loyal southerners of north Alabama suffered greatly when the country was stripped of its men for the armies. Yet it can hardly be said that they exercised much influence on politics before the war. Their only representative in the convention of 1861 was Charles Christopher Sheets, who did not speak on the floor of the convention during the entire session.

On the part of all in the northern counties there was a strong desire for delay in secession, and they were angered at the action of the convention in not submitting the ordinance to a popular vote for ratification or rejection. Many thought the course taken indicated a suspicion of them or fear of their action, and this they resented. Their leaders in the convention expressed the belief that the ordinance would have easily obtained a majority if submitted to the popular vote.[239] Much of the opposition to the ordinance of secession was due to the vague sectional dislike between the two parts of the state. It was felt that the ordinance was a south Alabama measure, and this was sufficient reason for opposition by the northern section. Throughout the entire session a local sectional spirit dictated their course of obstruction.[240] In January and February of 1861, there was some talk among the discontented people of seceding from secession, of withdrawing the northern counties of Alabama and uniting with the counties of east Tennessee to form a new state, which should be called Nick-a-Jack, an Indian name common in East Tennessee.[241] Geographically, this proceeding would have been correct, since these two parts of the country are closely connected, the people were alike in character and sentiment, and the means of intercourse were better. The people of the valley and many others, however, had no sympathy with this scheme. Lacking the support of the politicians and no leaders appearing, the plan was abandoned after the proclamation of Lincoln, April 10, 1861. Had the war been deferred a few months, it is almost certain that the discontented element of the population would have taken positive steps to embarrass the administration; many believed that reconstruction would take place. Only after four years of war was there after this any appreciable number of the people willing to listen again to such a proposition. In February, 1861, Jeremiah Clemens wrote that Yancey had been burned in effigy in Limestone County (something that might have happened at any time between 1845 and 1861); that some discontent still existed among the people, but that this was daily growing weaker, and unless something were done to excite it afresh, it would soon die out.[242] Mr. John W. DuBose, a keen observer from the Cotton Belt, travelled on horseback through the northern hill counties during the winter of 1861 and 1862 as a Confederate recruiting officer. Thus he came into close contact with all classes of people, eating at their tables, sleeping in their beds, and in conversation learning their opinions and sentiments on public matters. He saw no man, he says, who was not devoted to the Confederacy. Several of the first and best volunteer regiments came from this section of the state, and in these regiments there were whole companies of men none of whom owned a slave. In order to preserve this spirit of loyalty in those who had been opposed to the policy of secession, Yancey and others, after the outbreak of the war, recommended a prompt invasion of the North.[243]

Unionists, Tories, and Mossbacks

Before secession, the term "unionist" was applied to those who were opposed to secession and who wished to give the Union a longer trial. They were mostly the old Whigs, but many Democrats were among them. Then again the coöperationists, who wanted delay and coöperation among the states before secession, were called "unionists." In short, the term was applied to any one opposed to immediate secession. This fact deceived the people of the North, who believed that the opposition party in the South was unconditionally for the Union, and that it would remain in allegiance to the Union if secession were attempted. But after secession this "union" party disappeared.

The "tories" were those who rebelled against the authority of the Confederate States. Some of them were true "unionists" or "loyalists," as they were called at the North. Most of them were not. The "mossback," who according to popular belief hid himself in the woods until moss grew on his back, might or might not be a "tory." If he were hostile to the Confederacy, he was a "tory"; if he was simply keeping out of the way of the enrolling officers, he was not a "tory," but a plain "mossback" or "conscript." When too closely pressed he would either become a "tory" or enter the Confederate army, though he did not usually remain in it. The "deserter" was such from various reasons, and often became a "tory" as well; that is, he became hostile to the Confederacy. Often he was not hostile to the government, but was only hiding from service, and doing no other harm. The true "unionists" always claimed great numbers, even after the end of the war. The North listened to them and believed that old Whigs, Know-nothings, Anti-secessionists, Douglas Democrats, Bell and Everett men, coöperationists--all were at heart "Union" men. It was also claimed that the only real disunion element was the Breckenridge Democracy. Such, however, was not the case. Probably fewer of the old Whig party than of any other were disloyal to the Confederacy. So far as the "tory" or "loyalist" had any politics, he was probably a Democrat, and the more prominent of them had been Douglas Democrats. The others were Douglas and Breckenridge Democrats from the Democratic stronghold--north Alabama.[244] Very few, if any, Bell and Everett men were among them. The small lower class had no party affiliations worth mentioning. During the war, the terms "unionist" and "tories" were very elastic and covered a multitude of sins against the Union, against the Confederate States, and against local communities. With the exception of those who entered the Federal army the "tories" were, in a way, traitors to both sides. North Alabama was not so strongly opposed to secession as was east Tennessee,[245] nor were the Alabama "unionists" or "loyalists," as they called themselves, "tories" as other people called them, of as good character as the "loyalists" of Tennessee.

The Alabama tory was, as a rule, of the lowest class of the population, chiefly the "mountain whites" and the "sand-mountain" people, who were shut off from the world, a century behind the times, and who knew scarcely anything of the Union or of the questions at issue. There was a certain social antipathy felt by them toward the lowland and valley people, whether in south or in north Alabama, and a blind antagonism to the "nigger lord," as they called the slaveholder, wherever he was found. In this feeling the women were more bitter than the men. Secluded and ignorant, they did not feel it their duty to support a cause in which they were not directly concerned, and most of them would have preferred to remain neutral during the entire war, as there was little for them to gain either way. As long as they did not have to leave their hills, they were quiet, but when the enrolling officers went after them, they became dangerous. To-day those people are represented by the makers of "moonshine" whiskey and those who shoot revenue officers. They were "moonshiners" then. Colonel S. A. M. Wood, who caught a band of thirty of these "tories," reported to General Bragg, "They are the most miserable, ignorant, poor, ragged devils I ever saw."[246] Many of the "tories" became bushwhackers, preying impartially on friend and foe, and especially on the people of the rich Tennessee valley.[247]

Growth of Disaffection