Bounty jumper Bounty jumpers were men who enlisted in the Union or Confederate army during the American Civil War only to collect a bounty and then leave . The draft of 1863 allowed individuals to pay a bounty to someone else to fight in their place rather than be drafted . Bounty jumpers commonly enlisted numerous times in the army , collecting many bounties in the process . Methods . Being a bounty jumper was more profitable in the North . A month after the Battle of Fort Sumter the United State Congress passed a law allowing for bounties up to $ 300 . The Confederate government did likewise , starting at $ 50 and then later in the war increased the bounty to $ 100 . As the US dollar was worth more than the Confederate dollar ever was , regardless of the $ 200 disparity , the Northern government had greater luck with bounties , and was more likely to have to deal with bounty jumpers . With state and local governments also adding to bounties , the total could amount to $ 1000 , a considerable amount . As the typical Northern private was paid $ 13 a month , the bonuses were considerable . Typically , the bounty jumper would desert their unit before arriving on the front lines , traveling to a new area to gain another bounty . One bounty jumper collected at least 32 bounties . Consequences . Due to the number of bounty jumpers taking advantage of being substitutes for those drafted , the Confederate Congress withdrew the law making substitutions possible in December 1863 . Not all bounty jumpers successfully left their new unit . During the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in 1864 , one bounty jumper who was a member of the 35th Massachusetts Regiment shouted " Retreat ! " causing the entire unit to panic and run back to their earthworks . A popular place for bounty jumpers to go to was New York City . At one time 3 , 000 professional bounty jumpers were believed to be in the city . A dozen a day were found in a brief campaign to catch jumpers in February 1863 ; many were caught while enjoying a brothel . Toward the end of the war , detective Lafayette Baker captured 183 bounty jumpers in a single day by having an infamous broker named Theodore Allen help him use a fake recruitment office ; however , Allen eventually ran off to Canada with $ 50 , 000 that was used for the purpose of capturing the bounty jumpers . One bounty jumper became particularly famous . Adam Worth became an international thief , with the theft of Thomas Gainsborough ' s painting " Duchess " being his most famous crime . He would become known as the " Napoleon of Crime " , a label Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would borrow when creating the character Professor Moriarty , whom Doyle loosely based on Worth . According to William Pinkerton , Worth did actually fight once , for the Union in the Battle of the Wilderness , and once collected a $ 30 Confederate bounty , only to eventually fight for the Union . Pinkerton further said that Worth did what he did due to greed and lack of patriotism , not for cowardice . Northerners typically saw bounty jumpers as either " urban , largely foreign underclass " worthy of contempt , or viewed as urban dandies . The view of them as cowardly was generally universal . This wide view allowed Northern authorities to punish bounty jumpers more harshly than other deserters . Punishment . Bounty jumping could be a capital offense . In 1864 three bounty jumpers were executed on the parade grounds of Camp Morton in Indianapolis , Indiana . At Governor ' s Island in early 1865 , bounty jumper James Develin was executed ; he had been turned in by his wife after she caught him with another woman . Bounty jumpers were more likely to receive death sentences than those deserters who left due to homesickness , or to help the family farm , or simply as a lark against authority . In another incident , a bounty jumper attempting to escape his captors was shot when one of them overtook him , placing the pistol directly to the back of the man ' s head while both were running . Not all punishments were capital . When a man who bounty jumped 32 times was caught , he was sentenced to four years in prison . The infamous Andersonville prison held hundreds of bounty jumpers . Bounty jumpers also faced torture . One method to torture bounty jumpers was by use of thumbscrews .