It was on this day in 1863 that Congress passed the Civil War
Conscription Act, which required all men between the ages of twenty and
forty-five to serve three years in the military. But one big loophole
in the law allowed wealthy men to hire substitutes to serve in their
place. Among the wealthy men who did hire substitutes were J.P. Morgan,
Andrew Carnegie, and the future President Grover Cleveland.
The draft was hugely controversial in Northern cities. Increasingly
lengthy casualty lists were printed in newspapers every day, and men of
the working classes resented the fact that they were being used as
cannon fodder while the rich men sat idle. The frustration eventually
led to the New York draft riots that summer. Mobs broke into the homes
of the wealthy and smashed store windows, eventually killing more than
105 people. It was a regimen of soldiers, fresh from the Battle of
Gettysburg, who eventually restored peace to the city.
...................
Many of the poor Irish were hired as substitutes.
Second Avenue.
THANKS for stopping by, I do my best to acknowledge when someone leaves a comment,you do not have to be a member here & everyone is welcome. Ps: This site is monitored but not actively posting on a regular basis. Mostly these are stories & some photos saved from a defunct site known as Verdun Connections which was on MSN Groups initially then on a social network called Multiply.
2 comments:
This message makes me wonder if Canada ever had any similar forced service decrees. ?????
Here is an article devoted to conscription in Canada.
http://www.mta.ca/faculty/arts/canadian_studies/english/about/
study_guide/debates/conscription.html
By the fall of 1944, it became clear that the Canadian Army needed
infantry reinforcements that would be created only if the government
invoke conscription for overseas service. King delayed as long as he
could and finally agreed that conscription had become necessary.
Slightly more than 12,000 conscripts were sent overseas before the war
came to an end. That the country did not fragment further during the
Second World War was largely a credit to Prime Minister King who
strived throughout his long political career to keep the nations united.
"Kwitchyerbellyakin."
- Irish saying
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