細節
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, President. Letter signed ("A. Lincoln") as President, to an unidentified correspondent [Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton], Washington, D.C., 9 January 1865. 1 full page, 4to, on Executive Mansion stationery.
A PAID SUBSTITUTE FOR A D.C. DRAFTEE
An unusual Presidential directive, probably dictated by Lincoln, concerning a man in jail who has been hired as a substitute for a Washington, D.C. draftee: "Let Solomon Young be examined to ascertain whether he possesses the physical qualifications for a soldier, in which case he will be discharged from confinement in jail and enrolled as a substitute for William D. McMahon, drafted in the first Ward of this city..." Published in Collected Works, ed. R.P. Basler, 8:206.
The hiring of substitutes who served in the Union armies in the place of draftees was one of the provisions of the Enrollment Act of March 1863. The drafted man could either hire a substitute at the going rate in his district, or (until the law was changed in February 1864) pay the government itself $300 for commutation of service. The price of substitutes quickly exceeded the $300 level; for this reason legal draft evasion became a perogative of the well-to-do. Some 118,000 substitutes served in the Union armies from 1863.
A PAID SUBSTITUTE FOR A D.C. DRAFTEE
An unusual Presidential directive, probably dictated by Lincoln, concerning a man in jail who has been hired as a substitute for a Washington, D.C. draftee: "Let Solomon Young be examined to ascertain whether he possesses the physical qualifications for a soldier, in which case he will be discharged from confinement in jail and enrolled as a substitute for William D. McMahon, drafted in the first Ward of this city..." Published in Collected Works, ed. R.P. Basler, 8:206.
The hiring of substitutes who served in the Union armies in the place of draftees was one of the provisions of the Enrollment Act of March 1863. The drafted man could either hire a substitute at the going rate in his district, or (until the law was changed in February 1864) pay the government itself $300 for commutation of service. The price of substitutes quickly exceeded the $300 level; for this reason legal draft evasion became a perogative of the well-to-do. Some 118,000 substitutes served in the Union armies from 1863.