to Evade Southern Military Duty
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch March 19, 1862:
Wharf Rats.
–Despite the industry of the militia officers for the past two days in hanting up delinquents, there are hundreds of men in the city liable, who are either hiding, or resorting to other means equally as despicable, to escape exposing their precious persons to even remote danger. Independent of the above, the city is just now infested with a large number of persons, with similar ideas of patriotism, who have ignobly left various southern cities to avoid military duty. Some of them set up stores and pretended to be merchants, while many linger around the street corners with dubious and uncertain looks. It may be accepted as a truth, that if able-bodied men are not willing to fight at this particular juncture they are not very good citizens, and their antecedents should be inquired into.
