Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1863-11-12
Results Of the Draft,


shall General, undsr date Of the 10th of the
last month, embodies some interesting
facts connected with the draft, as shown BY
reports made up to that time. Col, FRY says
"The machinery for executing the enroll
nent act is in complete working order The
! law as it stands cannot be made to develop
| the entire military strength OF the nation, ano
| the execution of it has been rendered exceed
| ingly difficult by the efforts made IN various
I wavs to resist or evade it, or to escape from
| its operation. It's fruits, therefore, are not
| as abundant as they will be from perfected
| law and more thoroughly established system
| of executing it. All the advantages, how
/ ever which could reasonably have been ex-
| pected from the law are accrulns Its gen,
erai principles distribute the burdens OF mill
! tary service fairly among those liable to bear
| them, but there is, perhaps more generosity
| than business in some of its humane provis-
! ions With certain notifications, which can
readily be made by Congress, the military
strength Of the country may, by the direct
| and Indirect operation of this act, be surely
and cheaply brought into the field.
"Seyeral of the Western States have not
been subjected to the present draft on &C
4 count of the excess of volunteers heretofore
/ furnished, and from the same cause the
4 quotas in other Western States are rendered
| quite SMALL the present draft is, therefore,
| but partial one, and no specific total was
/ established as the quota for it.
/ ''Of those drawn in the present draft, in
Guiding the fifty per cent. additional, over
| eighty per cent. have reported in accordance
| with the orders of the Boards. Of the TWEEN
| ty per ceet. who have not reported, many are
not willful deserters, being unavoidably alb
A. he,
| being arrested.
"Of all examined about thirty per cent.
have been exempted on account of physical
| disability, about thirty per cent. have been
| exempted under the provisions of the second
section of the act or found not liable to mil
itary duty on account of alienage, unsuitable
ness Of age, non-residents, &c.
| "Those who are not liable to military du-
| ty, and form no part of the national forces,
and therefore have been enormously enrolled,
appear in the general reports Of the Boards
| among those exempted, because their nom
ability to serve could not be established IN
| til they came before the Boards. The num-
| Der of exemptions is thus made to appear
much larger than it really is.
about thirty per cent of the men exam
| ined have been held to service, and have
| either entered the army in person, furnished
substitutes, or PAID Communication.
about one-half of those held to service
have paid communication; of the remainder,
about one-third have gone in person, and
two-thirds have furnished substitutes, and all
except a few in transit and a small proportion
of deserters from among the earlier substi
tutes accepted, are in the ranks of their regi-
ments in front of the enemy.
1t is fair to suppose that most Of those
who willingly fail to report, and thus become
deserters, are physically fit for service; if
they had been examined the proportion e1-
empted for physical disability would have
been reduced to about twenty-five per cent.
The proportion of exemptions would be still
further reduced by purging the enrolment
lists before the draft of all cases Of manifest
untitness, and of aliens and others not liza
bic to military duty, as may be done where
this system of raising troops is well estab
liShed
"The propositions above given are based
upon the reports up to this time from the
seventy three Congressional districts where
the draft has been completed, or has most
nearly approached completion.
" Since the present rebellion began about
two hundred thousand soldiers, after entering
service, have been discharged on surgeons
certificates of disability. 1t is probable that
vice when received. 1t may be safely said
that forty millions of money were uselessly
expended in bringing them into the field, to
say nothing of their subsequent expense to
the Government.
Gin Great Britain, under the saystem of
voluntary enlistments, the reflections average
over twenty-seven per cent In France, from
1881 to 1912 the average number of e1emp-
tions annually was "a, $50, so that, to secure
the contingent of $4,000 men, ia, $50 con-
scripts were annually examined. Of the re-
cruits who presented themselves for enlist
ment in our regular army in 1862, seventy
per cent. were rejected for physical infrmi-
ties, exclusive of age or stature. Between
1st January and lst July last more than one
half were rejected. These were men who
desired to be accepted. These proportions
are of interest in conne1ion with the fact
that less than one third Of the drafted men
who desire not to be accepted have been ex-
empted on account of physical unftness.
"There have been but few cases of incom-
potency, fraud, neglect, or abuse in the ex-
animation of drafted men. These men have,
however, in many ways, been swindled by
rogues having no connection with the Boards
of Enrolment as, for example, the fact that
certain drafted men were physically unfit for
service has become known to these sharpers
when it was perhaps not known to the men
themselves, and they have so far imposed up
on the ignorance or credulity Of the drafted
men as to get from them sums of money to
secure an exemption to which the rogues
knew they were entitled and would surely re-
ceive, and the drafted men, finding themselves
exempted as promised, have sometimes
thought and given out that they secured ex-
emption by bribery of drafting officers,
whereas they were legally entitled to exemp-
ton, and have themselves been swindled by
sharpers All has been done that seemed
proper under existing laws to check these
evils, and to meet properly the few cases of
criminality and incompetency which have oc
Cured among the officers of this bureau
"Al the expenditures up to this time on
account Of this bureau including the enroll
ment, draft, and pay of officers and persons
connected with it, are but little over ST.
100000. These expenditures include all
made on account of the machinery which has
produced the arrest and return of twenty
thousand deserters
1.-The amount of money received from the
draft up to this date is about ten times as
great as all the expenses incurred on account
of the enrolment act those resulting from
the New ork riots are not, however, in
Guided in this statement, as they are more
properly attributable to other causes and
other persons than to the draft, or the officers
of this bureau"
4 MILITARY REPUBLIC.-By the census of
1860 there were 27,00O 900 of white people
in the United States. Of these 100000
belong to the loyal states, one half of whom,