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The Confederate Conscription Acts, 1862 to 1864, were a series of measures taken by the Confederate government to procure the manpower needed to fight the American Civil War. The First Conscription Act, passed April 16, 1862, made any white male between 18 and 35 years old liable to three years of military service.
The law addressed Confederate fears of a slave rebellion due to so many white men being absent from home, as they were fighting in the Confederate Army. The Confederacy enacted the first conscription laws in United States history, [3] and the percentage of Confederate soldiers who were conscripts was nearly double that of Union soldiers.
The Enrollment Act of 1863 (12 Stat. 731, enacted March 3, 1863) also known as the Civil War Military Draft Act, [1] was an Act passed by the United States Congress during the American Civil War to provide fresh manpower for the Union Army. The Act was the first genuine national conscription law. The law required the enrollment of every male ...
Confederate troops shot two additional suspects trying to escape. Confederate troops captured and arrested some 150–200 men in and near Cooke County at a time when numerous North Texas citizens opposed the new law on conscription. Many suspects were tried by a "Citizens' Court" organized by a Confederate military officer.
The Confederate Conscription Act of April 1862 had expressly forbid the raising of new units through conscription. The intent of the law had been to provide replacements to the existing Confederate regiments in the field for the losses that they had already experienced through disease, desertion and battlefield loss.
Representative Henry S. Foote of Tennessee, a former Unionist who had defeated Davis for Governor of Mississippi, insisted in the Confederate House on state control of conscription, and warned that the Davis bill would lead to a Confederate civil war. When Davis responded with a successful measure to increase conscription to the ages of 16 to ...
Confederate conscription was not universal; it was a selective service. The First Conscription Act of April 1862 exempted occupations related to transportation, communication, industry, ministers, teaching and physical fitness. The Second Conscription Act of October 1862 expanded exemptions in industry, agriculture and conscientious objection.
German opposition to slavery led to animosity between the two groups throughout the 1850s. Texas' secession from the United States in March 1861 and the start of the American Civil War on April 12, 1861, magnified these disputes. [15] Unionists throughout the Confederate States, including Germans, resisted the imposition of conscription in 1862