Conscripting Vermont: The Civil War draft

Castleton State College historian Dr. Andre Fleche has spent years studying the Civil War and its complex causes and outcomes. At an April 7 lecture at the Vermont-New York Slate Valley Museum in Granville, he discussed how the military draft, starting in 1863, affected communities across the fourteenth state. Fleche is the author of the critically acclaimed book about the Civil War, titled "The Revolution of 1861". The Confederate States of America instituted a draft a year before the United States forced a draft. Starting in 1862, the CSA government required men, ages 18 to 35, to serve for three years. Later, as the South realized it was losing the war, men ages 17 to 50 were drafted. However, substitutions were permitted and many men of wealthy southern stock took advantage of the loophole. In the North, the Militia Act of 1862 first gave President Lincoln the power to raise nearly a half a million men, for up to nine months service. But this quasi draft was conducted through state governments. Not until the Draft Act of 1863 was mass service compulsory in the North. "In 1861, Lincoln responded to the shelling of Fort Sumter by calling for 75,000 state militiamen to come forward and suppress the rebellion. In issuing his request, the president sought to fight the ensuing Civil War by relying on America's tradition of voluntarism and civilian service," according to Fleche. "Though he had a professional military at his disposal, the pre-war army was a tiny institution, consisting of a handful of undermanned regiments scattered about at forts and posts across the country." Fleche noted that antebellum Americans–North and South–disliked standing armies. The sentiment dated back to the Colonial era. "For defense, they preferred to rely on their state militias, whose members assembled a few weekends per year to drill. In an emergency, it was believed, they would gladly leave their shops, offices, and farms, and pick up their muskets in defense of the republic." But that was not the case by 1862. As casualties mounted after the bloody Battle of Shiloh in 1862, patriotic fervor seemed to vanish overnight; volunteers vanished. According to Fleche, the Town of Castleton, like so many others across Vermont and elsewhere in the Union, complied with state and federal law. "The selectmen kept a militia enrollment roster, which could be used in the event of a draft. They made yearly additions to the list as young men came of age and others moved into town." Fleche pointed out that selectman removed the names of all men who were no longer living in Castleton from the draft rolls. "In late 1864, State Adjutant and Inspector General Peter T. Washburn issued General Order 2, in which he laid out specific instructions for keeping the rolls. He commanded the selectmen to draw a red line through the names of residents who had turned 45 or who had died." Washburn also requested lists of men who had been drafted or who were exempt, such as Congressmen and other individuals. While Vermonters seemed resigned to obey the draft, New Yorkers were divided. In addition to New York City, other Northern cities, with their thousands of working- class families, were hotbeds of anti-draft unrest and violence. The New York City draft riot, known as "Draft Week", in July 1863 became the nation's most violent civil unrest action, aside from the war. As many as 150 civilians were killed during the week of insurrection. And America wouldn't again see such anti-draft sentiment until the Vietnam War in the 1960s. Note: Thanks to the Slate Valley Museum and Castleton State College for assistance.

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Conscripting Vermont: The Civil War draft

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