Late in 1863 the Confederate Congress abolished substitution – those conscripted could no longer hire replacements to serve in the CSA army. The Congress went further (third paragraph) in January 1864 by requiring “that men who had hired substitutes report for duty as either volunteers or inductees.” It didn’t take long for a citizen to challenge the January law in court.
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch January 16, 1864:
The substitute question.
–The case of Josiah Blackburn, who applies for a discharge from military service under a writ of habeas corpus, will be argued to day.
This is the first case in which the validity of the late law of Congress placing in the service those who have furnished substitutes, has been questioned, and its decision will be looked to with great interest by a large number of persons similarly situated.
An editorial claimed that the biggest problem facing the South was the bad attitudes of those who now had to serve in the army.
From the same issue:
The situation of the Confederacy.
We feel perfectly confident in the belief that the despondency which to a certain extent has lately spread over the country is due, in a great degree, to the murmuring of those who have been subjected to the operation of the conscription by the repeal of the substitute laws. Those gentlemen who, in the prime of life, with all their limbs sound and intact, with their bodily condition in a state of perfect health, strong, and active, who thought themselves secured from accident by shot and shell under cover of their substitutes, have found themselves mistaken, and there is no end to their lamentations. Of course, the country must be gone to the dogs since they are called upon to fight for it. What more terrible calamity can befall it than that they should be disturbed in their patriotic occupations of fleecing the public and hoarding up money, to bear arms, like common people, in defence of their lives, their homes, their families, and their firesides? As long as the question was left to be decided by others, everything was going on well enough. No reverse could daunt their courage, since it did not fall on them; no defeat could abate their hopes, since it did not endanger their money-bags. Now, however, the scene is completely reversed. These patriots see ruin in everything — even in our very successes. The idea of having to shoulder their muskets and face the enemy in person tinges all their contemplations, and causes them to see everything through a veil as murky as the very pit of perdition. They live in an atmosphere rendered gloomy by their own personal apprehensions, and they fancy that it is the only atmosphere in the world. Because everything looks black and gloomy to them, they believe that everything is black and gloomy in very truth. “Pat,” said a gentleman sleeping at an inn to his Irish servant, “Pat, open the door and see what sort of night it is.” “Please your honor,” answered Pat, opening the door of a press and popping his nose upon a huge cheese, “Please your honor, it’s dark and smells like cheese.”
The discontent, the murmurs, the gloomy views of this class of malcontents have, we verily believe, done more to dispirit this people than all the disasters we have sustained from the beginning of the war to this moment. …
That the Yankees are making desperate efforts to bring the war to a speedy termination cannot be doubted, and we, at least, are not at all disposed to deny it. But the very prices which they offer for the re-enlistment of their veterans, proves that this effort will be their last. The very fact that they are enlisting our negroes to do their fighting for them, proves a scarcity of men who have any stomach for the war. Nevertheless, they will make this effort, and it will be gigantic. And how do we propose to meet it? Not, we presume, by a tame surrender; not by giving up our houses to be taken possession of by negroes; not by turning over all our goods and chattels to be confiscated for the benefit of the Yankees; not by sitting with our arms folded, or wringing our hands and blubbering over our misfortunes. These are the inevitable consequences of submission, and we do not suppose even the most gloomy of the substitute purchasers contemplate such a surrender as that. If they do not, there is but one alternative. It is to obey the laws of Congress cheerfully and with alacrity — to fight the enemy, since better may not be done. While our Congressmen are talking, they are preparing for their formidable onset. We must be prepared to meet them, and we can be prepared if the proper steps be taken. We must meet them, and we must beat them. What is more, we can meet them, and we can beat them. What is most of all, we will meet them, and we will beat them. Away, then, with all this childish despondency. There is no occasion for it, and if there were, this is not the time to indulge in it. The Confederacy has not yet put forth one-half its strength. It has risen always with the occasion, and thus it will continue to rise, as fast as fresh occasions present themselves. For our own part, we never have doubted of the issue, even when McClellan was around this city, and that, we take it, was the darkest hour of the Confederacy.
