[223] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 881.
[224] The law of Feb. 17, 1864, provided for the separate enrolment of these two classes, and the enrolling officers interpreted it as requiring separate service. Such an interpretation would practically prohibit the formation of volunteer commands and would leave the reserves to the enrolling officers to be organized in camp.
[225] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 322, 323, 463, 466, 1059, 1060.
[226] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 817, 819, 920.
[227] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 821, 848. At this time there were in the state 1223 officials who had the governor’s certificate of exemption. There were 1012 in Georgia, 1422 in Virginia, 14,675 in North Carolina, and much smaller numbers in the other states. See O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 851.
[228] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 224 (March 18, 1864).
[229] An ex-Confederate related to me his experiences with the conscript officers. In 1864 he was at home on furlough and was taken by the “buttermilk” cavalry, carried to Camp Watts, at Notasulga, and enrolled as a conscript, no attention being paid to his furlough. To Camp Watts were brought daily squads of conscripts, rounded up by the “buttermilk” cavalry. They were guarded by conscripts. When rested, the new recruits would leave, the guards often going with them. Then another squad would be brought in, who in a day or two would desert. This soldier came home again with a discharge for disability. The conscript officials again took him to Camp Watts. He presented his discharge papers; the commandant tore them up before his face, and a few days later this soldier with a friend boarded the cowcatcher of a passing train and rode to Chehaw. The commandant sent guards after the fugitives, who captured the guards and then went to Tuskegee, where they swore out, as he said, a habeas corpus before the justice of the peace and started for their homes with their papers. They found the swamps filled with the deserters, who did not molest them after finding that they too were “deserters.”
[230] 8835 to January, 1864. See report of Colonel Preston, April, 1864, in O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 355, 363. The estimate was based on the census of 1860.
[231] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 101, 103, et passim.
[232] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 355, 363.