The separate enrollment of classes is repealed and the two classes consolidated.
Members of religious denominations, who shall by oath or affirmation declare that they are conscientiously opposed to the bearing of arms, and who are prohibited from doing so by the rules and articles of faith and practice of said religious denomination, shall when drafted, be considered non-combatants, and be assigned to duty in the hospitals, or the care of freedmen, or shall pay $300 to the benefit of sick and wounded soldiers, if they give proof that their deportment has been uniformly consistent with their declaration.
No alien who has voted in county, State or Territory shall, because of alienage, be exempt from draft.
“All able-bodied male colored persons between the ages of twenty and forty-five years, resident in the United States, shall be enrolled according to the provisions of this act, and of the act to which this is an amendment, and form part of the national forces; and when a slave of a loyal master shall be drafted and mustered into the service of the United States, his master shall have a certificate thereof; and thereupon such slave shall be free, and the bounty of one hundred dollars, now payable by law for each drafted man, shall be paid to the person to whom such drafted person was owing service or labor at the time of his muster into the service of the United States. The Secretary of War shall appoint a commission in each of the slave States represented in Congress, charged to award to each loyal person to whom a colored volunteer may owe service a just compensation, not exceeding three hundred dollars, for each such colored volunteer, payable out of the fund derived from commutations, and every such colored volunteer on being mustered into the service shall be free. And in all cases where men of color have been enlisted, or have volunteered in the military service of the United States, all the provisions of this act so far as the payment of bounty and compensation are provided, shall be equally applicable, as to those who may be hereafter recruited. But men of color, drafted or enlisted, or who may volunteer into the military service, while they shall be credited on the quotas of the several States, or sub-divisions of States, wherein they are respectively drafted, enlisted, or shall volunteer, shall not be assigned as State troops, but shall be mustered into regiments or companies as United States colored troops.”
1864, Feb. 29—Bill passed reviving the grade of Lieutenant-General in the army, and Major General Ulysses S. Grant was appointed March 2d.
1864, June 15—All persons of color shall receive the same pay and emoluments, except bounty, as other soldiers of the regular or volunteer army from and after Jan. 1, 1864, the President to fix the bounty for those hereafter mustered, not exceeding $100.
1864, June 20—The monthly pay of privates and non-commissioned officers was fixed as follows, on and after May 1:
Sergeant majors, twenty-six dollars; quartermaster and commissary sergeants of Cavalry, artillery, and infantry, twenty-two dollars; first sergeants of cavalry, artillery, and infantry, twenty-four dollars; sergeants of cavalry, artillery, and infantry, twenty dollars; sergeants of ordnance, sappers and miners, and pontoniers, thirty-four dollars; corporals of ordnance, sappers and miners, and pontoniers, twenty dollars; privates of engineers and ordnance of the first class, eighteen dollars, and of the second class, sixteen dollars; corporals of cavalry, artillery, and infantry, eighteen dollars; chief buglers of cavalry, twenty-three dollars; buglers, sixteen dollars; farriers and blacksmiths, of cavalry, and artificers of artillery, eighteen dollars; privates of cavalry, artillery and infantry, sixteen dollars; principal musicians of artillery and infantry, twenty-two dollars; leaders of brigade and regimental bands, seventy-five dollars; musicians, sixteen dollars; hospital stewards of the first class, thirty-three dollars; hospital stewards of the second class, twenty-five dollars; hospital stewards of the third class, twenty-three dollars.
July 4—This bill became a law:
Be it enacted, &c. That the President of the United States may, at his discretion, at any time hereafter call for any number of men as volunteers for the respective terms of one, two, and three years for military service; and any such volunteer, or, in case of draft, as hereinafter provided, any substitute, shall be credited to the town, township, ward of a city, precinct, or election district, or of a county not so subdivided towards the quota of which he may have volunteered or engaged as a substitute; and every volunteer who is accepted and mustered into the service for a term of one year, unless sooner discharged, shall receive, and be paid by the United States, a bounty of one hundred dollars; and if for a term of two years, unless sooner discharged, a bounty of two hundred dollars; and if for a term of three years, unless sooner discharged, a bounty of three hundred dollars; one third of which bounty shall be paid to the soldier at the time of his being mustered into the service, one-third at the expiration of one-half of his term of service, and one-third at the expiration of his term of service. And in case of his death while in service, the residue of his bounty unpaid shall be paid to his widow, if he shall have left a widow; if not, to his children; or if there be none, to his mother, if she be a widow.