My duties under the Enrolment Act turned out to be very slight. The
Act (passed March 3, 1863) made, in general, each congressional
district an enrolment district under charge of a provost-marshal
with the rank of captain. A deputy provost-marshal supervised the
enrolment and draft for the State, and the whole was under the
control of the provost-marshal-general at Washington, Colonel James
B. Fry. The law provided for classification of all citizens capable
of military duty between the ages of twenty and forty-five, so as to
call out first the unmarried men and those not having families
dependent on them. The exemptions on account of physical defects
were submitted to a board of three, of which the local
provost-marshal was chairman, and one was a medical man. Substitutes
might be accepted in the place of drafted men, or a payment of three
hundred dollars would be taken in place of personal service, that
sum being thought sufficient to secure a voluntary recruit by the
government. The principal effect of this provision was to establish
a current market price for substitutes.
The general provisions of the law for the drafting were wise and
well matured, and the rules for the subordinate details were well
digested and admirably administered by Colonel Fry and his bureau.
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