The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio; or, Glimpses of Pioneer Life

by N. E. Jones

A year after the services were performed, fifteen thousand seven hundred and sixty-six were issued to Squirrel Hunters, which, however, did not embrace more than one-third of the number that responded to the call and took part in the defense of Cincinnati and the Kentucky cities.

Those with certificates and those having none, but who responded to the call, are no less “Squirrel Hunters,” descendants of the Spirit of ’76—a chosen people to maintain and perpetuate the model government of the world.

From the Declaration of Independence to the present time the power of this free people has been as manifestly directed by unseen forces as ever was that of the favorite nation which came out from Egypt under a cloud; and the influences which dictated the dedication of the North-west to freedom will not likely permit the purpose to be compromised or changed.

That which was considered a long duration of the war, with frequent calls for troops, became exceedingly discouraging. And it was evident, after two years, that the strength of the federal army was inadequate for successful offensive operations. At the beginning of 1863, it required nearly four hundred thousand recruits to fill the companies and regiments then in service up to the standard enumeration. Death, disaster, and desertion begat inactivity, with an apparent exhaustion of former volunteer supplies; and secession was becoming more noisy and defiant in all the loyal states. This condition of things brought out the conscript act, and under it the Provost-Marshal General’s Bureau was organized June 1, 1863, by James B. Fry, and early in 1864, this efficient officer and his assistants had the loyal states well canvassed, and thoroughly organized, to obtain all the men necessary to put down the Rebellion. Each state was divided into districts; each district was placed under the management of commissioned officers, termed a Board of Enrollment, consisting of a provost-marshal, commissioner, and surgeon, whose business it was to make a full and exact enrollment of all persons liable to conscription under the law of March 3, 1863, and its amendments, showing a complete exhibit of the military resources in men over twenty and under forty-five years of age, with the names alphabetically arranged, with description of person and occupation in each sub-district.

The enrollment being cleared of persons having manifest disability of a permanent character, each sub-district (township or ward) was required to furnish its assigned quota under calls for men, whether the able-bodied individuals enrolled continued to reside in that sub-district or not. Unless it could be shown such person or persons were correctly enrolled in another sub-district, were in the service uncredited or credited to another sub-district, the removal of residence could not relieve the obligation of the sub-district where such person or persons were enrolled.

This new arrangement at first was exceedingly unpopular with rebel sympathizers in the loyal states, but the bureau soon established a business that impressed a belief in secession circles that it was an energetic war measure that would soon end the unpleasantness. This system of furnishing soldiers showed many advantages over that of voluntary enlistments. Large demands for men could be met immediately, and at the same time it made every citizen, whether loyal or disloyal, equally interested in having the quotas filled by means of bounties in order to avoid sub-district drafts.

And from an enrollment of two million two hundred and fifty-four thousand persons liable to do military service, the bureau, in a brief period, forwarded under calls of the government one million one hundred and twenty thousand six hundred and twenty-one able-bodied soldiers, and with these, and those already in the field, the would-be Southern Confederacy crumbled before the federal power.

It cost the government for raising troops from the commencement of the war until May 1, 1863, the date the recruiting service was turned over to the Provost-Marshal General’s Bureau, forty-six million one hundred and twenty-four thousand one hundred and sixty-two dollars, or thirty-four dollars for each man, exclusive of pay or bounty, while putting soldiers in the service under the conscript act cost the government nothing. The Provost-Marshal General neither asked nor received an appropriation, but under the law he made the bureau pay all attendant expenses, and after paying out sixteen million nine hundred and seventy-six thousand two hundred and eleven dollars for recruiting over one million men and capturing and forwarding seventy-six thousand five hundred and twenty-six deserters (now wards), General Fry turned into the Treasury of the United States, to the credit of the bureau, nine million three hundred and ninety thousand one hundred and five dollars, all of which proved a matter of great economy to the government, while the recruiting of the army cost less than one third as much as that adopted previous to the organization of the bureau, and that without cost to the government.

The draft-wheel and its uses were not the most pleasant things to contemplate, and to soften down the enactment Congress authorized recruiting in Southern states, regardless of color or previous condition, that by means of agents and liberal bounties very little drafting would likely be necessary. And it was soon discovered that blue suits and muskets were quite becoming to the colored man. “The shape of the cranium, the length of the forearm, thinness of the gastrocnemius muscles, and flatness of the feet,” all disappeared at the War Office, and for which was substituted, “He can be made a mechanical soldier to great perfection, skilled in the use of arms, and the machinery of tactics; and, by reason of the obstinacy of his disposition and the depth of his passions, may become most powerful in a charge or in resisting the onset of an enemy.”