Franklin: "Chapter XLIX. The State Draft of 1862.," by Alexander K. McClure, 1905
Summary: : Alexander McClure writes of the 1862 draft in Pennsylvania and the political implications that accompanied the draft.
EIGHTEEN hundred and sixty-two was an eventful year in the history of the war. Grant had achieved important Union victories in the Southwest, capturing Forts Henry and Donaldson and Nashville, the capital of Tennessee, followed by the final victory of his army at Shiloh, after having suffered a costly and humiliating defeat on the first day of the battle. Missouri was in a state of anarchy, the supporters and opponents of the Union making it a death struggle even between neighbors. In the East bloody battles had been fought, all of which were disastrous to the Union cause, with the single exception of Antietam, that was practically a drawn battle. McClellan had been defeated in the Seven Days battles on the peninsula, and the combined Union armies were again defeated on the old Bull Run field under Pope, suffering great loss of prestige for the Army of the Potomac and a fearful sacrifice of life. The Union sentiment of the State was greatly chilled, and the political situation was most embarrassing for the Union party.
A large increase of the army was an imperious necessity for the successful prosecution of the war, but President Lincoln hesitated to issue a call for additional troops because he feared it might result in organized opposition to the further prosecution of the war. Indeed, only the few who had accurate knowledge of the situation had any conception of the grave peril that confronted the administration. Our great army in the East had been defeated in repeated battles, its numbers were greatly reduced, and only by speedy and large reinforcements could the tide of disaster be turned to victory. Governor Curtin was then prostrated by a malady for which he could find no relief except in a very serious surgical operation. He was utterly exhausted by his continued efforts to sustain the government, but he was finally compelled to go to New York, under the strict orders of his physician that no official business should be permitted to reach him.
The President and cabinet had given very careful consideration to the question of raising additional troops, and they decided that it would be unsafe for the government to venture upon a call for the 300,000 additional soldiers needed without having an appeal made to the government by some highly responsible and representative class of men in the North. The scheme worked out by the cabinet was for Secretary Seward to proceed to New York and summon a conference of the mayors of the prominent cities of the North, with a view of having them unite in an earnest request to the President to hasten the conclusion of the war by summoning a large increase of troops for the army, to enable it to hasten the overthrow of the military power of the South.
Seward went to New York and made his headquarters at the Astor House. Fortunately, Thomas A. Scott was with him, and he suggested to Seward that Governor Curtin was in the city, and as Pennsylvania was the most important State to be consulted, it might be well for the Secretary to confer with Curtin. Scott was sent to present the matter to the Governor, and he was soon almost entirely forgetful of his illness, and in defiance of the protest of his physician, he accompanied Scott to the Astor House, where Secretary Seward unfolded his plan.
Curtin at once said: "You are not assured of the loyalty of all the mayors of the prominent cities of the East, but you have an unbroken circle of loyal Governors in the Northern States, and they could make a demand upon the government for a speedy and large increase of the army, with vastly more force than could the mayors of the cities."
Seward gladly accepted the suggestion, and within a few hours Curtin had responses from a large majority of the Governors of the North cordially approving the proposition for a general conference, and on the 14th of September, 1861, the following call was issued for what is now known in the history of the war as the Altoona conference:
We invite a meeting of the Governors of the loyal States to be held at Altoona, Pa., on the 24th inst.
A. G. Curtin, Pennsylvania.
David Todd, Ohio.
F. H. Pierpont, Virginia.
The call was responded to by nearly all, and I believe quite all of the loyal Governors of the North, with the single exception of Governor Morgan, of New York, who declined for reasons that were never given to the public. After the call had been issued, but before the meeting was held, the battle of Antietam was fought that gave the semblance of victory to the Union army, and the preliminary emancipation proclamation had been issued by the President, who had personally conferred with a large number of the loyal Governors on the subject, and it was well understood that the Altoona conference was not only called for the speedy and large increase of the army, but to indorse the emancipation policy of the government.
The address to the President was written chiefly by Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, assisted by Governor Curtin, and after it was adopted it was decided that the members of the conference should call upon the President in person to give the greatest possible effect to their action.
This conference, with the earnestly patriotic tone of the utterances made by the Governors, and of the formal address they presented to the President, at once lifted the North out of the slough of despair, and Lincoln was entirely clear to call for 300,000 additional troops. It was, in fact, the turning point of the war, and but for the precaution taken to educate the loyal sentiment in the North up to the point of accepting the fearful sacrifices necessary to sustain the Union, it is doubtful whether the government could have been successful in replenishing the broken lines of our army.
A call had been made for 300,000 troops on the 7th of July, 1862, and the quota of Pennsylvania was about 17,000 or 18,000, and it was evident that the quota could not be furnished by volunteers. The bounty system that was soon thereafter inaugurated, and that later grew to fearful proportions, had not then been resorted to, and a draft to fill our quota became an imperative necessity.
The National conscription act did not become operative until 1863, and there was no authority in the government to draft men for a period exceeding nine months. To organize and execute a draft in a great State like Pennsylvania was a most appalling task, as it involved the most careful visitation to every household in the State to ascertain the names of those who were subject to military duty, and to ascertain, also, how many volunteers were then in the service from each township or ward. After such enumeration an exhaustive tabulation of the conscripts due from each of the two thousand districts in the State was necessary, and, after the draft, each conscript had the right to appeal to a commissioner and surgeon of the county to claim that he had lawful reasons for not accepting military service. The draft had to be made by State officers, and their compensation depended upon individual settlements with the National government.
When the Legislature adjourned in the spring of 1862 I had given five years of continuous service in one or the other branch, and for more than two years, with my duties as chairman of the State committee, and the exhaustive duties required at Harrisburg, I had practically no time to give to professional, personal or private interests. I announced at the adjournment of the Legislature that I would not be a candidate for re-election to the senate, and would not continue as chairman of the State committee. I greatly needed rest, and long-neglected business interests demanded my attention. I felt a most gratifying sense of relief when I went home, believing that I could have a season of rest with no more than the ordinary business interests to be cared for.
When Curtin found that a draft was a necessity, he well understood the magnitude of the movement, and how easily it could be made disastrous in alienating loyal Democratic sentiment if the draft had even the semblance of partisanship in its execution. He sent for me and made an earnest appeal to me to take charge of the draft, but I could not entertain it. Just when I had hoped for a season of rest from the most wearing labors, I was confronted with the proposition to accept the most responsible and delicate duties that could be presented. He was very positive in urging my acceptance, but I was resolute in declining, and he could not but confess that I had good reasons for it.
I returned home happy in the belief that I had escaped a fearful responsibility; but the next day I received a telegram from the President and proceeded to Washington. He informed me that Curtin had presented the situation in Pennsylvania to him, and said that he had sent for me to urge as a personal service to himself that I should take personal charge of the draft in Pennsylvania. It was not possible to refuse the President, and I most reluctantly acceded to his wishes.
The mere matter of making the enumeration in the State and calculating the quota of each district was not the alarming feature of the new duty I had accepted. Competent men could be employed for the performance of all such duties, but with the Democratic party only partially loyal to the government and the Republican party disheartened to the verge of despair, it was an imperious necessity that the draft should be executed at every stage and in every feature with open and absolute freedom from all partisan or personal interests.
I reported to the Governor and told him that I had agreed to take charge of the draft without commission or compensation, requiring only that I should be allowed to select two thoroughly competent clerks who should be paid by the State $100 a month. That was accepted and I had most competent and faithful service from ex-Senator James M. Sellers, of Juniata, and ex-Representative John McCurdy, of Cumberland.
A commissioner and surgeon of the draft were required to be appointed in each county of the State. Under the law it was the duty of the commissioner to appoint proper canvassers to make the enumeration of each township, and the surgeon and commissioner, who constituted the board, had power to discharge any conscript upon proof that he was not subject to military duty, or for any other reason for which he was ineligible for the service.
I knew that the small politicians of each county would make an earnest struggle to control the commissioner and surgeon in their respective counties to wield the power to assure the discharge of conscripts where it would serve political ends. The selection of these officers was therefore a most important duty, and I knew how the Governor would be importuned to appoint men who had rendered service to the party, and who would be likely to render service to their party friends in deciding appeals for release from conscript service.
I said to the Governor that only on one condition would I take charge of the draft, and that was that in every other county of the State but his own county of Centre I should be entirely free to appoint the commissioner and surgeon for each county without consulting any one. I told him why I made the demand; that I believed it to be absolutely necessary to have these commissioners and surgeons one of each party in every county and men who would be accepted at once as entirely beyond the reach of political influence to favor conscripts who desired to escape from the army.
Curtin not only promptly assented to this, but said he would be glad to be able to say to all who came to him that the matter was not in his hands, and that the appointments would be made solely with reference to the military service. I was then quite familiar with the public men in every county of the State, and within twenty-four hours I had made out a list of commissioners and surgeons for each county.
The Governor had given me the names of the persons for his own county, but beyond that he did not know of another appointment that was to be made until I presented the list, and when he saw it he was delighted, as it at once disarmed all apprehension as to partisan manipulation or other interference in the execution of the draft.
I made William Henry Allen, Republican, then president of Girard College, commissioner for Philadelphia, and Dr. Gerhard, a man eminent in his profession, and a pronounced Democrat, the surgeon. In Montgomery I made James Boyd, then a prominent lawyer and Democrat of Norristown, and until his death the honored nestor of the bar, commissioner, with a Republican surgeon of the highest character; and in Lancaster I appointed James L. Reynolds, a prominent Democrat, and brother of General Reynolds, who fell at Gettysburg, the commissioner for that Gibraltar of Republicanism.
When the list of appointments was announced, showing that the commissioners and surgeons had all been selected with the single reference to their ability and integrity, and both parties equally represented, public sentiment throughout the entire State was at once disarmed of all apprehension as to any partisan aims in the execution of the draft, and we thus had a clear field for the important task that was before us.
While it was accepted on all sides, after the commissioners and surgeons of the draft had been announced, that partisanship had been entirely eliminated in the execution of the draft, there were serious danger signals in several sections of the State. It is due to the truth of history to say that at that time there was not a dominating public sentiment in Pennsylvania that heartily supported the war. They did not want to accept the dismemberment of the Union, but they were hopeful, even in the face of clearly apparent impossibilities, that in some way the war might be ended by compromise, and many of the sincerely loyal men of the State gravely doubted whether the military power of the Confederacy could be broken, and the seceding States brought back into submission to the Union. That sentiment, however, was really the creation of the failure of our army in the East to make successful progress in the prosecution of the war, and it was evident that Union victories in the field would restore Pennsylvania to aggressive loyalty.
The hesitating, doubting sentiment relating to the war was not the most to be feared. In several of the mining districts there were positive indications of revolutionary disloyalty, and it was especially manifested in Schuylkill, where the Molly Maguires were then in the zenith of their power. The center of their power was in Cass Township, where thirteen murders had been committed within two or three years, and not a single murderer brought to punishment. They successfully dominated the politics of the county, and made even the judges and court officers and jurors fear them. They had a very compact secret organization, and, as was developed in the later remarkable trial and conviction of the leaders by Mr. Gowan, they many times decided on the murder of an individual, drew lots as to who should commit the crime, and in nearly or quite every instance the chosen victim suffered a violent death. They were implacably hostile to the Republican party, and to the loyal sentiment that demanded the prosecution of the war, and they openly declared their purpose not to submit to the conscription that was about to be enforced.
I had chosen Benjamin Bannan, one of the most prominent and sagacious citizens of the county, then editor of the Pottsville "Journal," as commissioner for that county, not only because of his high character and admitted ability, but because of his intimate knowledge of all the political ramifications of the Commonwealth, including the Molly Maguires. He was very reluctant to accept the position, but when the needs of the case were explained to him he finally agreed to assume the task, and it was a task of appalling magnitude. He selected with the greatest care the men who were to make the enumeration of these districts, and although they were hindered at every stage in the immediate Molly Maguire region, they managed to get a fairly accurate enumeration without provoking any outbreak.
Cass Township had an agricultural section in it that was entirely different from the Molly Maguires who ruled the mines, and the residents there were generally loyal. Of course, such a township would not have an excess of volunteers in the service, and an unusually large quota was officially returned to Commissioner Bannan with directions to fill the same with conscripts, and on the 16th day of October the list of conscripts was drawn for every district in the State, and it included a few of the agricultural people of Cass Township, and a much larger number of miners, all of whom were under the absolute influence of the Molly Maguires. The conscripts were ordered to start for Harrisburg on a given day, and those of the agricultural portion of Cass Township appeared at the depot to take the train for Harrisburg, but the Molly Maguire conscripts, with a number of their friends, appeared also, and not only refused to respond to the call of the State by going to Harrisburg, but riotously excluded the willing conscripts from the car.
The facts were promptly telegraphed me by Bannan, and in turn I promptly communicated them to Secretary Stanton, of the War Department. Stanton was strenuously loyal and at times impetuous when confronted by open disregard of law. He at once telegraphed me, assigning a regiment in Harrisburg and another in Philadelphia to be subject to my orders to be sent at once to Schuylkill County with orders to enforce the draft at the point of the bayonet.
After consultation with the Governor he urged that a conflict between our own troops and rioters opposing the execution of the draft would be most disastrous in its consequences, not only at home, but throughout the country, and in accordance with his views I prepared an answer to Secretary Stanton suggesting that haste should be avoided in forcing a conflict between the troops and the Cass Township insurgents.
He promptly answered repeating his order that the regiments should be started at once to Schuylkill County, and the draft enforced without parleying. The troops were ordered to prepare at once to be transported to Pottsville in accordance with the directions of the Secretary of War, and they arrived in Pottsville on the following day, but no orders had been given to them beyond going to that point.
After further conference with the Governor I prepared a dispatch in cypher [sic] to President Lincoln, giving the Governor's views as to the peril of provoking a conflict with the Schuylkill rioters and asked for an early answer. This despatch [sic] was sent some time in the afternoon, and we were greatly disappointed that no answer came to it, although I waited until two o'clock in the morning, hoping to receive it. I slept little and was up early in the morning, and when I entered the breakfast room at the hotel I saw Assistant Adjutaut General Townsend at the table, and he at once beckoned me to come and join him.
I was well acquainted with him, and was greatly gratified at seeing him, as I did not doubt that he had some official instructions for me. He at once informed me that he had been sent by President Lincoln to see me and to deliver a personal message, saying that he did not know to what the message related. He said the President had instructed him to inform me that he was desirous, of course, to see the law executed, or at least to appear to have been executed, to which he added: "I think McClure will understand." General Townsend said: "I have no knowledge as to the subject matter of this communication that I have delivered exactly as instructed."
Without waiting for breakfast I sent a despatch [sic] to Commissioner Bannan to come to Harrisburg at once, and he was there very soon after noon, and we at once went to the Executive chamber and discussed the situation with the Governor. Lincoln's message was well understood. Bannan was most desirous for a peaceful solution of the problem, and he said that the draft could not be executed in Cass Township without a bloody conflict with the Molly Maguires, and he could conceive of no method by which there could be given the appearance of executing the law.
I told him that there was but one way in which it could be done; that several districts in the State had shown conclusively that their quota had been entirely filled by volunteers, some of whom had enlisted in county towns or in the cities and had not been properly credited to the township as the law required. Where the facts were made clear I had at once revoked the order for the draft, and I said that only in that way could the Cass Township problem be solved if it were practicable.
Bannan made no reply, but took his hat, hastened to the train and reached Pottsville the same evening. On the following evening he was back in Harrisburg with a large number of affidavits regularly executed before a justice of the peace or notary public, proving on their face that the quota of Cass Township had been filled by volunteers, chiefly by men connected with the mines who had enlisted from the towns or cities where companies or regiments were being formed. The affidavits were carefully tabulated and they made the quota of Cass Township entirely full. They were undisputed, and I at once issued the order releasing the conscripts of Cass Township from reporting for duty because the quota had been filled with volunteers.
Commissioner Bannan did not proffer any explanation as to how the affidavits had been obtained, nor did the Governor or myself make any inquiry. The law appeared to be executed, although all connected with its execution were entirely satisfied that the affidavits were fictitious, but it was an imperious necessity to avoid a conflict between the Molly Maguires and the troops, and that was accomplished by Commissioner Bannan furnishing the required affidavits that were clothed with all the ceremony of law. The troops were at once ordered back from Pottsville, and the draft was executed in every other district in the State without trouble.
It is not the exact truth to say that the draft was executed in every other district in the State outside of Cass Township. It will astound many of the citizens of Philadelphia to be told that this loyal city did not fill its quota of troops as shown to be due by the quotas issued for the draft. Philadelphia was short of her quote, some 3,000 men, and I issued the order for a draft on Philadelphia just as it was issued for all the other districts of the State. It aroused the greatest anxiety among the political leaders of the city, as they were entirely convinced that a draft for 3,000 men made in Philadelphia would defeat the Republicans at the coming election, although the actual draft was not to be made until a few days thereafter. Philadelphia was regarded as the one great loyal city of the Union, and an order for a draft in Republican Philadelphia, when Berks and Lehigh, the Democratic Gibraltars of the State, had promptly filled their quotas to the last man by a regiment of volunteers from their own people, was regarded as fatal to Republican mastery in the city.
Colonel Mann was a candidate for re-election as district attorney, and was the undisputed political leader. The Union League was not then completely organized, and it was not felt in the effort to reinforce the army as it was later in its magnificent movements by which regiment after regiment was raised and hurried to the front.
There were experienced "lightning calculators" in those days, and they were assigned the task of showing that Philadelphia had sent an excess of her quota in volunteers to the front, and on one basis it was susceptible of the clearest demonstration. Philadelphia had sent in companies and regiments marching from the city to the field many more than her full quota, but several thousand of them were men who had come from adjoining counties to join companies in the city, all of whom had been credited to their proper districts at home. Armed with this plausible balance sheet, a formidable political committee was sent to Washington to wrestle ostensibly with the Provost Marshal General, but in fact with the political leaders who had access to the citadel of power. They insisted that they had filled their full quota, and that to compel them to send additional troops would be very unjust and result in political disaster.
The result was that I received official instructions from Washington to revise the quota of Philadelphia and revoke the order for the draft. I doubt not that the political leaders were entirely right in the assumption that a draft in Philadelphia would have assured Republican defeat, as the Republican majority in the city was only 2,500. The political situation was thus saved in Philadelphia, but the army lost nearly 3,000 reinforcements.
Bibliographic Information: Source copy consulted: Alexander K. McClure, Old Time Notes of Pennsylvania, 1905, pages 537-551.
