Bureaucracy: Interpret, Enforce, Modify
In February 1864 the Confederate Congress passed a 35 page Law In Regard To Taxes, Currency and Conscription. The Bureau of Conscription apparently changed the rules for farm exemptions a month or so afterwards. Contiguous small farms that did not employ enough field hands to earn an overseer exemption on their own merits, could amalgamate numbers and one overseer for the two farms could avoid the army.
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch April 13, 1864:
Interesting to Farmers.
–The following extract from Circular No. 8, issued from the Bureau of Conscription, dated March 13th, 1864, contains useful information to agriculturists having a less number than fifteen hands:
Schedule of Terms.–When there are two or more farms continuous, or within five miles of each other, measuring from the homesteads, having on each five or more hands, amounting in the aggregate to fifteen hands, or where one person has two or more plantation within five miles of each other, having an aggregate of fifteen or more hands, there may be detailed one person as overseer or manager of the two or more farms: provided there is on neither of the farms a white male adult, declared by the Enrolling Officer and temporary Board capable of managing the farms with a reasonable efficiency, not able to military duty: and provided the person detailed was, on the first day of January, 1864, either owner, manager, or overseer, residing on one of the farms: and provided the owners of said farms shall execute a joint and several bond, on the terms prescribed for the owners of fifteen hands, except that such persons shall not be allowed the privilege of commutation provided in the 4th article of the 10th section of the act recited, (17th February, 1864.)
I’m pretty sure that the 4th article is really the 5th article of section 10 on pages 32 and 33 of the law (at the link above). That article seems to have been written with the idea of getting as many men in the army without damaging food production too much.
