USCT Substitutes in the Border States Buried in National Cemeteries

Beginning of the War

The American Civil War culminated after years of sectional dispute between the free labor and slaveholding states over the future of slavery. Both sections competed against one another to perpetuate their respective labor system in the western territories. The competition came to a head when President Abraham Lincoln and his anti-slavery Republican Party won the 1860 election. In response, insurrectionist officials from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas surmised that Lincoln threatened slavery and voted to secede from the United States.

Separating the free states and the rebelling slave states was the border region. Composed of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri, this region often urged compromise and Union in the 1840s and 1850s. White officials dwelling in these border states hoped to control their 547,428 enslaved and free Black residents by preserving their Constitutional state’s rights to preserve slavery. Weary of northern abolitionists, but fearful that southern secession would destabilize slavery by nullifying their Constitutional protection, especially relating to the Fugitive Slave Act, border states officials did not rally to the Confederate cause.

On April 12, 1861, Confederate troops opened fire on United States forces in Fort Sumter, South Carolina. The ensuing cannonade lasted over 30 hours and resulted in the U.S. surrendering the fort. In response, President Abraham Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 troops to suppress the insurrection. Officials from Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia voted to secede from the United States and join the Confederacy. Hoping to maintain their Constitutional protection of slavery, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware officially remained loyal to the United States. As the war progressed, the federal government increasingly relied upon these states for its military recruitment efforts.

Thousands of young men across the loyal states answered and began to organize military outfits for national service. While few knew it at the time, these first volunteers were a fraction of the roughly 2.6 million men that served in the United States military during the war.

Raising the Armies

Between 1861 and 1862, the U.S. Army was a White volunteer force. Patriotism, a sense of adventure, or a sense of obligation to serve with their community, encouraged volunteerism. The principal objective was preserving the Union of the states and maintaining the Constitution as it was prior to the war. Accordingly, the U.S. Army was not initially fighting to end slavery and it generally excluded Black men from serving, especially in combat regiments. However, by late 1862, the U.S. Army had suffered over 100,000 battlefield casualties and was struggling to find volunteers to replace its losses. It became a matter of military necessity to expand the manpower pool to include Black men and institute a compulsory recruitment system.

On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The measure legally freed all enslaved persons dwelling in the unoccupied rebelling states. Additionally, the Proclamation officially authorized federal recruiters to organize all-Black units to serve in the U.S. Army. However, Black recruitment alone would not be enough to fill out the Army's ranks. Three months after the Emancipation Proclamation, the federal government began to institute the nation's first national draft.

National Conscription

On March 3, 1863, the United States established its first military draft regulation known as the Enrollment Act. It was meant to reinvigorate military enlistments after two years of war and heavy casualties had reduced volunteerism. However, Congress recognized the potential controversy surrounding military conscription as the federal government had never instituted it during its previous wars. Many citizens were averse to compulsory military service, especially if they disagreed with the war itself. Many antiwar northern Democrats, known as Copperheads, protested the measure and threatened agents who tried to enroll them for service. Congress hoped to assuage such discontent by allowing loopholes such as commutation (paying a $300 fee to avoid service) and substitution which made the draft a last resort option.

Between March 1863 and April 1865, 73,607 White and Black men joined the United States military as substitutes. Roughly 24 percent of the the 180,000 men in the USCT were substitutes. The border region provided a rich resource for this recruitment as the enslaved and refugee population grew throughout the war years.

Commutation allowed drafted men to avoid service by paying a $300 fee to the federal government. The initial idea behind this particular sum was to cap the substitution rate at $300 as drafted men would not pay more when they could pay the commutation fee. While some men commuted, the method was unsatisfactory to federal officials who increasingly prioritized manpower. Additionally, the lower economic classes did not favor commutation as they felt it favored the wealthy who could afford a substitute; making it a “rich man’s war, but a poor man’s fight.” By July 1864, the federal government discontinued commutation but kept substitution. However, without commutation to cap the substitution price, prices soared as high as $1,000 late in the war as drafted men sought a shrinking supply of willing candidates. To the dismay of many poor drafted men, substitution tended to favor the wealthy the longer the war went on.

Finding Replacements

In Section 13 of the Enrollment Act, drafted men could pay for a substitute to take his place in the military. Substitutes were intended to be men separate from the enrolled, or draftable, population. Often, this meant men outside the age range of 20 to 45, foreign nationals and nonresidents, or refugees from the Confederacy. The Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863 allowed states to enroll their free Black men for the draft and by February 1864, Congress extended enrollment to include both free and enslaved men. The Emancipation Proclamation authorized states to accept African American recruits and credit them to their respective troop quotas. While this was a national policy, it mostly affected the loyal border states. The Black populations of these loyal slave states had swelled after 1863 as enslaved refugees crossed the border hoping to gain their freedom. Tapping into this “great available and yet unavailed of, force” which was largely unenrolled, the border region quickly became a hub of Black military (USCT) recruitment and substitution.

Private Jacob Saunders

Jacob Saunders was born in Russell County, Virginia, around 1839, but joined the U.S. Army in Lebanon, Kentucky, on January 12, 1865, at the age of 26. Listed as a prewar laborer, it is unclear exactly what Saunders did in his prewar life or how he ended up in Kentucky. No enslaver consented to Saunders’s enlistment and while there was a White family with the name Saunders that dwelled in Pike County, Kentucky, along the Virginia border, they do not appear as enslavers on Census Slave schedules. Additionally, the family was living in Arkansas by 1860, prior to the outbreak of war. Whether he was enslaved or free, Jacob Saunders joined Troop L of the 5th United States Colored Cavalry (USCC) as a substitute.

The man Saunders substituted was Solomon Christian. According to Saunders’s enlistment papers, Christian had been drafted in Lebanon, Kentucky, under the fall 1864 draft. There is not much more record of Christian in either the Census or military records. His age, race, occupation, and marital status are unknown. The only clear thing about him was that he lived for a time in Lebanon, as federal agents enrolled him in that location, he did not want to serve, could afford a substitute, and did not mind if a Black man served in his stead.

Receiving Pay

Despite limited records on Saunders and Christian, they still offer an important glimpse into the substitution process in the border states. There was often little to record of the Black recruits’ prewar lives nor of the men they were substituting. During this late stage in the war, such information was difficult to track or verify as thousands of Black refugees sought freedom from slavery by migrating behind U.S. lines. Saunders’ substitution reveals how ambiguous this enlistment process could be in the border states.

One thing these records emphasized was money. Jacob Saunders received $380 for his service and it was consistently recorded throughout his muster records. It is hard to know exactly what these funds covered but it may be that Saunders’s received $300 to serve as a substitute plus an additional $80 bounty. Unlike many other substitutes, and many Black soldiers who simply volunteered, substitution could potentially offer recruits the chance to earn extra money for their military service.

Enlisting for U.S. service as a Black man in Kentucky could be potentially dangerous. Of all the border states, Kentucky had the largest enslaved population and many of its White citizens did not want to see it transferred to the U.S. Army. Guerrilla forces, slave catchers, and general citizens sometimes patrolled the streets specifically to prevent Black men from joining the military. Apparently though, Saunders was willing to take the risk of venturing into a U.S. Army recruiting office.

Military Service

Saunders’s military career in the 5th USCC was short-lived and relatively uneventful. Saunders’s joined the regiment as a replacement after it had lost 113 casualties, including 102 killed—many of whom were executed by Confederate forces, at the fighting around Saltville, Virginia (October 2, 1864). After December 1864, the regiment did not see large-scale action as it was relegated to duty in Kentucky where it protected supply lines and combated local guerrillas. Saunders probably served as a guard at a supply depot or a patrol man working along the roads and countryside.

One instance occurred on January 25, 1865 when some members Troop E, 5th USCC were ambushed around Simpsonville, Kentucky. The troopers were driving cattle from Camp Nelson to Louisville when local Confederate guerrillas attacked their camp and killed around 22 cavalrymen. While Saunders served in Troop L and probably was not present at Simpsonville, the event nonetheless demonstrates the danger he and his comrades faced in Kentucky.

Death

Nine months after his enlistment, Saunders was admitted to the regimental hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, due to chronic diarrhea. On either September 30th or October 1, 1865, Saunders died of the affliction. The exact date is not confirmed as his muster papers list September 30th and the grave marker itself has October 1 as the death date. Saunders is buried at Lexington National Cemetery (Section 0, Site 948).

Private James Murray

Substitution could potentially be a manipulative system. Aside from swindling their clients of their bounties, recruitment brokers have also been known to use various drugs and alcohol to induce men into the service. Historians have noted accounts where men would go out drinking only to wake up hours later in a U.S. Army uniform. The Army would investigate such instances when recruits brought it to their attention and discharge those that could somehow prove their case. While such instances appear to have been somewhat rare, they did occur. The case of James Murray, a private in Company I of the 29th USCI, offers insight into how the Army addressed this weakness in the substitution process.

James Murray was born in Petersburg, Virginia, sometime around 1842. It is hard to know exactly if Murray was enslaved but there was a man named W. Murray of Petersburg, Virginia, who had a seven-year-old male under his charge in 1850. If James Murray was born around 1842, he would have been around seven at the time of the 1850 Census. Whatever the case, Murray somehow found his way to Baltimore, Maryland, by December 13, 1864. On this date, 22-year-old Murray joined the 29th USCI as a substitute.

On paper, James Murray substituted for Reuben E. Jackson of Baltimore. There is little record of Jackson, except for his mention in Murray’s enlistment papers, but he lived in the city’s 9th Ward on H. Saratoga St. and had enough money to hire a recruitment broker.

Unscrupulous Brokers

On December 17, 1864, J. P. Creager, a U.S. Sanitary Commission Agent based in Maryland, wrote to a Major General Wallace that a “respectable man of color” claimed a man named “Theodore Dixon induced a young man (Joseph Murray) who was a stranger in the city to go with him as he could get him a good job.” The note mentioned that while walking together, “Dixon gave him tobacco through the influence of which he became stupid.” Dixon then took this Joseph Murray to a “kind of restaurant in Saratoga Street.” When the young man “came to know himself again[,] he was in the U.S. Service.” The note went on to mention that this Murray “did not intend to go into the U.S. Service and that Dixon was known as “a great rascal… used by the substitute brooker[sic] for such purpose and many …[ineligible] colored men are put into the Service by being drugged in this way.”

A flurry of correspondence followed as Army officials tried to figure out what had happened. On December 19th, Major General Wallace wrote to Colonel G. A. Washburne, commander of the draft rendezvous if he had any record of a Joseph Murray. Washburne responded that he did not have a Joseph on his records but did have a James Murray who had been enlisted by a Captain Blumingburg in Baltimore.

Confused Situation

On December 22, Colonel W.H. Browne, the acting assistant Provost Marshal General for Maryland and Delaware, wrote to Captain Blumingburg to have his report on the situation. Blumgingburg responded by stating that “James Murray” had enlisted with “full possession of all his faculties and was perfectly sober” and received a $100 bounty for serving as a substitute.

While it is difficult to know what is true, it does seem that these officials were referring to James Murray. The fact that Dixon walked an intoxicated Joseph Murray down the same street Reuben Jackson lived on, involved the same recruiting Captain and the same draft rendezvous location, implies all of this related to James Murray. It is hard to know if James Murray was telling the truth, as he apparently received a bounty, it is an interesting case which reveals the potential flaws with the substitution process. The Army ended up holding Murray to his service and sent him to his regiment in Virginia.

Murray joined his regiment as it besieged the Confederate Army outside of Petersburg. After the city fell on April 2, 1865, Murray participated in the Appomattox Campaign which culminated with Robert E. Lee surrendering of the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9. Following Lee’s surrender, Murray and his regiment went on to Texas where, on June 19th, 1865, it helped introduce emancipation to the state in what has since been commemorated as Juneteenth.

Post-war

Murray survived his military service and eventually settled in Alexandria, Virginia. He married Matilda Gray and helped raise Ethel Thompson as his stepdaughter. He worked as a boatman and later as a stationary engineer at the Washington D.C. Orphanage for 15 years. Between 1910 and 1920, Murray paid off his mortgage and became a homeowner in Alexandria. Murray died on September 8, 1921 and is buried in Alexandria National Cemetery (Section B, Site 3601).

Private Thomas Jones

The substitution process in the border states was not bound by any geographic parameters. Drafted men from across the loyal states often looked beyond their locale to find suitable candidates to take their place in the Army. The border states proved to be a valuable resource for this sort of endeavor as their large unenrolled Black populations were often eligible substitutes under the U.S. Army’s regulations.

In the border states, this measure threatened to undermine the institution of slavery as draft boards could draw upon the enslaved population to meet a quota. However, the measure offered “loyal” White men compensation in exchange for enlisting their chattel property prior to a draft. Thomas Jones was one such enslaved man who was effectively sold to the U.S. Army by his enslaver as a substitute.

Thomas Jones was born in Linn County, Kentucky, in 1846. Listed as a farmer, Jones was enslaved by Louis Bohanan and eventually transported to Ray County, Missouri located just east of Kansas City, Missouri. Jones lived in Ray County until September 6, 1864 when he enlisted as a substitute in Company H, 18th USCI at the age of 18.

Slavery and Substitutes

Louis C. Bohanan, age 53, was a wealthy farmer and real estate owner who enslaved a total of 12 people; one of whom was an unnamed 14-year-old Black male in 1860; the same age as Jones. Bohanan was a businessman who had a personal and real-estate value of $24,900 by 1860. Politically, Bohanan seemed to be a member of the Whig Party as an 1854 newspaper article listed “Ray [County]: Bohanan, Whig.” The Whig Party, headed by men such as Henry Clay of Kentucky, were generally moderate in the sectional strife between North and South. They tended to favor the Union and Constitutional law. When war broke out, it is possible that Bohanan sympathized with the United States.

The man Thomas Jones eventually substituted was a White man named William Kelly of Steele County, Minnesota. Kelly was born in Michigan sometime around 1834 but was living in Wilson, Minnesota, at the time of his enrollment. He was married by 1863 and listed as a farmer. Kelly was 30 years old when he was drafted and sought out a substitute.

Military Service

Thomas Jones joined the Army in Saint Joseph, Missouri, and although he was substituting a man in Minnesota, he was credited to Ray County, Missouri. Given that Jones’s enlistment papers listed Bohanan as the enslaver, it is probable that he consented to the enlistment. Bohanan was a businessman and may have recognized an opportunity to sell one his enslaved and unrolled men (Jones was outside the age range of 20-45) to the U.S Army. Bohanan probably got in touch with a broker in Saint Joseph (just north of Kansas City) to sell Bohanan into the Army. If Bohanan was loyal to the government, he would have received $300 compensation enlisting Thomas Jones as an Army volunteer. It also appears that Thomas Jones received $100 bounty and was owed an additional $200, perhaps for joining as a substitute.

Thomas Jones’ enlistment displays how the border states were a manpower resource for substitute brokers. Outside recruiting had occurred since early 1863 when Massachusetts recruited free Black from across the North for the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, but the addition of enslaved men helped make the border states a key region for substitution.

Death

Thomas Jones military career was short-lived. After joining on September 6, 1864, he was admitted at the Benton Barracks hospital in Saint Louis, Missouri, on November 6, 1864. The Army diagnosed him with Smallpox and quarantined him at their contagious disease hospital on Arsenal Island, known as “Small Pox Island,” located on the Mississippi River. On January 4, 1865, Jones died of Smallpox.

Due to flooding, Arsenal Island’s grave markers washed away. In 1876, all of the bodies, including Jones’s, were reinterred at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery as unknowns.

Private Harrison Lockwood

Harrison Lockwood was born in Kent County, Delaware, around 1840. He was 23 years old when he volunteered as a substitute in Company D of the 8th United States Colored Infantry (USCI) on September 28, 1863. His enlistment papers label him as a prewar laborer but there is no mention of whether he was free or enslaved at the time of his enlistment.

The man Lockwood substituted was Peter Stevens, a Black man of Smyrna, Delaware. Stevens, a 35-year-old, unmarried, resident of Little Creek Hundred just south of Smyrna, had been enrolled for military service in July 1863. A month later on August 13th, he was drafted. Stevens was probably a free man and of some financial means as he was able to pay a recruiting broker to locate Lockwood as his substitute.

Pay Problems

During the early months of the war, it was somewhat rare for a Black men to be drafted and even more exclusive for them to find a substitute. However, Lockwood’s enlistment papers detail that he did not receive any bounty money nor any pay since his enlistment. It is possible that the recruiting broker may have just kept the substitution and bounty money while Army paymasters simply failed to pay him in time.

The Army did attempt to regulate the substitution process by compelling brokers to sign the documents in front of an official recruiter employed by the federal government. However, these recruiters had little say if the substitute had already signed an agreement that he would split or give his bounty money directly to the broker. Some local Provost Marshals were able to get reimbursements for the substitutes’ bounty money if they could prove they had been drugged or tricked but more often than not, the broker got away with it. In any case, Lockwood substituted Stevens and deployed to South Carolina with the 8th USCI.

Fighting at Olustee, Florida

The 8th USCI was part of the Department of the South based in Hilton Head, South Carolina. It was forwarded to Florida under an expedition meant to upset Confederate supply lines and help occupy the state. On February 20, 1864, Lockwood and his regiment fought at the Battle of Olustee in Baker County, Florida. During the fighting, Lockwood was wounded and captured by Confederate forces when U.S. troops withdrew.

Initially, Lockwood’s Captain “erroneously” listed him as “killed in action.” While this was later corrected to “Missing in Action,” it may be that his commanders assumed he had died as Confederate forces had killed a number of wounded USCT troops after the battle. The 8th USCI, one of a few Black regiments in the battle, suffered 51 men killed in action, 189 wounded, and 63 missing for a total of 303 casualties at Olustee.

Imprisonment

Lockwood survived his capture and was imprisoned at Andersonville Prisoner of War Camp in Georgia. While there, Confederate doctors reported he had been “wounded in ankle” and that his condition was “favorable.” However, Lockwood’s health declined and on October 5, 1864, he died in Andersonville of either “wounds received in action at Olustee, Florida” or “Diarehaea [sic].” Harrison Lockwood is buried at Andersonville National Cemetery (Section H, Site 10379).