Anti-war Sentiment in Greene County (continued)

PART III: ". . . Dunkard Township, the hotbed
of copperheadism . . ."

The national military conscription act or draft law passed by Congress on March 3, 1863, was one Republican war measure that met with widespread opposition throughout the North. The law provided that every male citizen of the United States and any foreign born male who had indicated an intent to seek citizenship between the ages of twenty and forty-five was to be enrolled for a draft into military service. A man could avoid being drafted by hiring a substitute to take his place in the army or by paying the government $300 in lieu of a substitute. For those in the North who felt the war should be fought by volunteers, the law was seen as both unconstitutional and a positive infringement upon their freedom. Many Peace Democrats pointed to the provisions regarding the hiring as a substitute as proof that this was "a rich man's war" and "a poor man's fight."
In the heat of July that year, the military draft sparked riots in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. In New York, the city mob became so violent that Union troops fresh from the battlefield of Gettysburg were sent to quell the disturbance. Peace Democrats setting as judges in Pennsylvania challenged the draft law at every opportunity. Judge Henry G. Long of Lancaster County on May 4, 1863, issued a ruling on an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a drafted man named John Shank that since there was no evidence of record that Shank had actually been mustered into service, he could not be arrested as a deserter from the army and was to be discharged from custody. In Schuylkill County, the Court issued bench warrants for the arrest of army personnel who attempted to arrest a drafted man in his home and fired warning shots at him as he fled. The army's provost marshall for the county, C. Tower, noted that "the presiding judge and the two associates of this court all rabidly oppose the war." It was said that the presiding judge "sorrowed publicly over the death of Stonewall Jackson." The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the case of Kneedler v. Lane (published in volume 45 of The Pennsylvania Reports on page 238), issued a preliminary injunction in the fall of 1863, declaring the draft law unconstitutional and directing the army to release any Pennsylvanian in service under its provisions. The preliminary injunction was later dissolved upon a full hearing, but the matter demonstrates the audacity of Peace Democrats like Pennsylvania Justice George W. Woodward when it came to opposition to the conscription act.
Violence against the persons or property of enrollment officers became a common form of resistance to the draft law in some rural counties of Pennsylvania. In a report to the Provost-Marshall-General of the Army, James B. Fry, dated December 12, 1864, Major Richard I. Dodge, acting provost-marshall-general for the Western Division of Pennsylvania commented on the difficulties encountered by the army in trying to enforce the draft law in his region. Headquartered in Harrisburg, Major Dodge called western Pennsylvania "a vast wilderness" with "scarcely any roads." He believed that in the rural areas, the inhabitants were "ignorant and easily imposed upon by designing politicians." As to the great oil region of Pennsylvania, Major Dodge found it "wonderful in its growth and migratory as to its population." Coal miners in western Pennsylvania he thought were "the very worst class of beings, both native and foreign, to be found in this country."
As enrollment for the draft started in Bedford County in June of 1863, Henry Ickes, the enrollment officer in Saint Clair Township, was threatened with "powder and lead." Within a day, his sawmill was burned, causing him $600 in damages. The enrollment officer in Napier Township in the same county had his barn burned. As time went on, it was reported that armed bands of men were accumulating in the woods of Cambria, Center, and Clearfield counties. Reports in Columbia County in 1864 indicated that draft resisters and deserters from the army had accumulated arms and built a fort in Fishing Creek Township which resulted in a military expedition into the region, mass arrests, and the eventual crushing of the movement known as the Fishing Creek Confederacy.
Greene County was part of the twenty-fourth district of Pennsylvania when the first enrollment under the draft law was conducted in June 1863. The Provost Marshall assigned to this district was Captain John Cuthbertson, a combat veteran who had been shot through both thighs at the Battle of Fraser's Farm in Virginia during General McClellan's ill-fated Peninsular Campaign in June 1862. The enrollment officer for Greene County was William G. W. Day of Waynesburg, a prominent member of the county's Republican Party who after the war became owner and editor of The Waynesburg Republican. On June 2, 1863, in a letter to the Enrollment Board for the 24th District of Pennsylvania, Day reported that he was "sorry to inform you that the enrollment is not going on pleasantly in Greene County." Unable to find anyone willing to serve as enrollment officer for Dunkard Township, "the hotbed of copperheadism," Day had picked a man he described as very good, "shrewd, calm, and resolute, and a businessman withal" from another township to serve. This man, a Mr. Alexander, had finished his enrollment duties in one township without trouble, but when he traveled into Dunkard Township, he spent a whole day without obtaining one name. Toward evening he entered the general store in Davistown and was met by a large number of men. These men refused to give him any information, but instead they obtained a rope and threatened to hang him if he did not leave Dunkard Township in three minutes. Mr. Alexander thereupon immediately left the vicinity.
Day wrote that the citizens of Dunkard Township had raised a company to defy Alexander and "just blocked him up so he could not do anything." Day was certain that trouble was brewing in at least three other townships in Greene County. Apparently, the Dunkard Township men argued that there had been an earlier draft made by the state against the township that had never been enforced. It was believed that there were already seven men in the area who had successfully evaded the draft. "Something must be done soon," Day told the Enrollment Board, "or they will have the thing all in their own hands."
Upon receipt of Day's letter, the provost marshall's office in Pittsburgh acted immediately and decisively. Deputy provost marshall G. S. Baker reported to Washington, D.C. to the provost marshall general James Fry on June 6, 1863, that he feared "the trouble" in Dunkard Township was "of some magnitude." On June 5, 1863, Captain Cuthbertson acquired a detachment of twenty-three men from Captain Charles Churchill's Pittsburgh garrison. These men, commanded by a Captain Hays, proceeded to Greensborough with Captain Cuthbertson by steamboat on the Monongahela River. Cuthbertson then led the men by foot over the road from Greensborough to Davistown, taking Mr. Alexander with him. The provost officer tried to conceal his troops’ movements, but their slow progress through the hilly Greene County countryside allowed news of their approach to reach Davistown in time for the leaders of the draft resistance in the area to flee.
Mr. Alexander again set up to take the enrollment in Davistown. This time, however, his authority was backed by armed Federal troops under the command of an able officer. The first two men approached by Alexander refused to give their names or ages. Cuthbertson immediately placed them under arrest, and all resistance to the process dissolved, with Davistown residents coming forward voluntarily to give their names. Cuthbertson and his troops remained in Davistown that first night, hoping to catch some of the ringleaders of the resistance. The next day he proceeded to Waynesburg, bringing back a detachment on the following day to Davistown, arriving around midnight. Surrounding the houses of the known leaders of the resistance, Cuthbertson again made an attempt to arrest them. The men were not to be found, however, and Cuthbertson was informed that they had fled to Virginia. In the meantime, Cuthbertson rounded up five deserters in the area along with the two prisoners he had arrested the first day.
The two men arrested the first day for refusing to give their names or ages obtained writs of habeas corpus for their release. A hearing was held before Judge James Lindsey, the Common Pleas Court Judge in Waynesburg, on the validity of the writs. Lindsey found to Cuthbertson's satisfaction that refusal to give their names constituted obstruction of an officer performing his duty and the arrests were properly made. Before leaving Greene County, Cuthbertson made Judge Lindsey, James A. Buchanan, the county chairman of the Democratic Party, and other leading citizens of the county, regardless of political affiliation, execute oaths of loyalty to the United States. In his report filed June 12, 1863, Captain Cuthbertson remarked that "War Democrats informed me that the promptness with which a military force had been brought upon the ground of resistance had been attended with happiest results, and that no further trouble need be anticipated."
In the meantime, in Waynesburg, the two political parties sparred over the meaning of it all. Apparently L. K. Evans in an article entitled "Mob Law" in the Greene County Republican accused the Democratic newspapers of counseling "resistance to the laws." The Waynesburg Messenger, in an article on June 3, 1863, denied any such intent to advise its readers to resist the law. To the contrary, the Democratic paper accused the Republicans of attempting "to stifle Free Speech and muzzle a Free Press . . . ." Such attempts by the Republicans were seen as recognition "of their own shortcomings . . . and the indefeasible character of much of their policy and many of their acts."
No matter how events were dissected by the newspapers and politicians, however, one thing is clear about the events in Davistown in the late spring of 1863. This time, there were no reports of warm breakfasts served to wet and hungry soldiers. Captain Cuthbertson, in his report regarding the incident, made no mention of the hospitality of the residents of the village. Federal soldiers and civilians in Davistown this time met as clear adversaries. Captain Cuthbertson's guns had swayed events. Fortunately, the incident and arrests occurred without violence. Resistance to the draft law, however, was a powder keg that only needed the right spark to bring violence even into the sleepy communities of Greene County.