In a message dated 2/26/03 8:47:14 PM Eastern Standard Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:


> to get out of it - off tot he front lines to fight for Abe Lincoln....no
> need
> to be a citizen to get drafted.   Hence huge draft riots in 1863.
>
>

yes, the Union Army draft record was biased towards the poor...no money and
you couldn't buy a substitute... you were in the Army.  I think the South had
a similar exemption for rich land owners...there goes the theory the big
slave holder actually fought in the War. My great grand father enlisted in
the 1861 ( 15th NY Heavy Art) when I was reading one of his letters dated in
63 ( written in German as he had come over from Switzerland sometime in the
50's...but that's another story) to girl that would become my great grand
mother...he commented on the "poor quality" of the substitute and of the
draftee in general..... he had two subsitutes in his gun crew and he had to
watch so they wouldn't run away....and he wasn't talking about being in
battle at the time.

BBuser


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