Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Substitutes in Demand
Allentown Democrat
Our town has been crowded for the last few days with drafted men from the rural districts in search of substitutes. There is great demand for them, many preferring the enjoyment of home comforts to the exposure and danger incident to "grim visages of war." Tempting offers are made by some wealthy farmers who have been drafted but men disposed to hire themselves for substitutes take advantage of circumstances to demand high prices for their services, which many of them readily obtain. Quite a number of bargains have been struck at $1,000 and from that figure down by the hundred to as low as $300 - none lower to our knowledge.
One man in one of the upper townships who had maimed himself recently to avoid the draft by cutting off one of his fingers yet was drafted, came to town on Sunday in a state of terrible alarm, anxious to obtain a substitute at any price, and picked up the first man he found willing to hire his services in that capacity, and promptly paid the sum demanded - $1,000!
Among those anxious to procure cheap substitutes are a number of abolitionists who have heretofore professed and been violent in their denunciations of Democrats as "cowards" and "traitors."
Our town has been crowded for the last few days with drafted men from the rural districts in search of substitutes. There is great demand for them, many preferring the enjoyment of home comforts to the exposure and danger incident to "grim visages of war." Tempting offers are made by some wealthy farmers who have been drafted but men disposed to hire themselves for substitutes take advantage of circumstances to demand high prices for their services, which many of them readily obtain. Quite a number of bargains have been struck at $1,000 and from that figure down by the hundred to as low as $300 - none lower to our knowledge.
One man in one of the upper townships who had maimed himself recently to avoid the draft by cutting off one of his fingers yet was drafted, came to town on Sunday in a state of terrible alarm, anxious to obtain a substitute at any price, and picked up the first man he found willing to hire his services in that capacity, and promptly paid the sum demanded - $1,000!
Among those anxious to procure cheap substitutes are a number of abolitionists who have heretofore professed and been violent in their denunciations of Democrats as "cowards" and "traitors."
October 23, 1862
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