Draft Dodging 

A recruiting tent in Albany bears the motto: "Come in out of the draft." 

James D. Phillips of Beekman, flatly denies having cut off his toe to get clear of being drafted, and requests us to print a notice in contradiction of the report. He says, "Money would not have induced me to have done it". That is satisfactory to us. 

A man named Hoag, belonging to Sherman, Conn., purposely cut his hand with a scythe to avoid being drafted. The wound bled profusely, and he shortly afterwards died. 

Another Case of Cowardice - We are informed that on Tuesday last a man named Charles Dibble, of Pawling, enlisted, but yesterday as he was about coming in town with others suddenly repented of his bargain and to evade it cut off one of his great toes. The officer was of course, obliged to leave him behind to have his toe dressed, but says he does not mean to let him off, but will make something of him now that he has enlisted, if he cannot be a soldier.

 Over in Connecticut the papers say that deafness has become a very prevailing complaint within a few days. Some gentlemen are almost unable to hear at all, but it is supposed their hearing will improve if they should hear that they were relieved from the draft. 

Four men in the town of Danbury, Conn., on Saturday last, applied to a surgeon to have their right hands dressed; three out of the four having deliberately severed the fore finger of their right hands, and the other the forefinger of the left hand - the latter mistaking the hand - and demanded a certificate of exemption from the draft.

 "If I should be drafted into the service, what would you do?", said a gentleman to his wife. "Get a substitute for you, I suppose." Whereupon the worse half changed the subject of conversation. 

We are informed that a man up street yesterday had several of his front teeth extracted to avoid being drafted. Napolean the First ordered all such men shot when they attempted to avoid the conscription by such means in France, which put a stop to it; the same order might have a good effect in this country.

 Last week we gave an account of a man in Beekman cutting off his toe to get out of being drafted. Some of the citizens are very indignant because we did not give the coward’s name. We are not prepared to do so positively, but it is rumored that the person referred to is James Phillips. 

In Cleveland a boy of seventeen was accepted as a substitute for a drafted man, and received $200 bonus. He spent the money and then obtained a writ of habeas corpus, on the ground that he was under the age prescribed by law for recruits. 

The Rebels have lately been enforcing their Conscription law in Maury County, Tennessee. The Nashville Union reports learns that a Mr. Dillaha of that county, upon being advised by some of his friends to quietly submit to impressment, vowed he would take his own life before he would shoulder a Rebel musket. A few days afterwards a party of horse were scouring his section, taking conscripts into the Confederate army. They came up with Mr. Dillaha, when, being unable to make good his escape, he drew a knife and cut his own throat from ear to ear. He died a short time thereafter.

The Geneva Gazette says the following is a copy of an advertisement posted in a conspicuous place on a manufacturing establishment. In that village: "Wanted - Four industrious young men wish to marry four respectable young ladies who enjoy a fortune of $300 each, to evade the draft. Inquire within."

Among the excuses offered by the rebels in Virginia to escape the draft for soldiers, some are extremely ludicrous. One man enrolling himself, wrote opposite his name, "one leg too short". The next man who came in, noticing the excuse, and deeming it pretty good, thought he would make his better, and wrote opposite his name - "both legs too short!"

The Ohio State Journal tells the story of the exempting physician in that city:
"Doctor, if the foot won't answer, I have another all sufficient reason; one that you can't refuse an exemption for."
"What is it?"
"Why the fact is doctor, I have not good sense - I am an idiot", solemnly replied the applicant."
"Ah!" said the doctor,"What proof have you of that? What evidence can you bring?"
"Proof conclusive," said the applicant.
"Why sir, I voted for Abe Lincoln, and if that isn't proof of a man being a damned idiot, I don't know how idiocy can be proven."

Mr. Linus Leonard, of Sturbridge, committed suicide on the 12th inst., by hanging himself by a rope from a beam in the upper shed adjoining. Intimations were given to his family of such a purpose just after one of the assessors of the town had been with him taking the names of those subject to the draft. Mr. Leonard was an extensive farmer, had aquired a large property, and was much respected. He was 42 years of age and leaves a wife and two young sons.

Chief Justice Hinman, of Connecticut has just decided that a man who enlists while he is thoroughly drunk, or between sunrise and sunset on Sunday, is not legally enlisted.

The alarming sickness which has suddenly manifested itself all over the country since the appearance of the order for a draft, is called the "Lincoln Gripes".

One day last week, a young fellow who had been employed as a waiter in a saloon in Rochester, and who had enlisted in the 140th Regiment, deserted. He was caught by a guard sent in search of him, and, on his way back to camp, asked permission to call at a shoe store to do an errand. The request beinmg granted, the chap ran through the back door of the store and entered the sallon where he had been employed. Thither he was pursued by the guard, who, after a thorough search of the premises, left, satisfied that he had escaped. All this time he was concealed under the crinoline of the cook, who subsequently confessed to the part she played. The deserter, when the search had been given up, emerged from his hiding place and got away.

We are told of a young man, recently a student in the Wesleyn University, who sold himself as a substitute to a drafted man for $300. Subsequently the price of substitutes declined, and the young man obtained a substitute for himslef for $200 - making a clean $100 by the operation. With this surplus he resolved to get married. He immediately acted upon the resolution, taking to wife a young lady of this city, and joyfully departed upon his wedding  tour, doubtless thinking himself free from all ills and care attendant upon a life in Uncle Samuel's military service. But alas! who can tell what the morrow may bring? The young gentleman departed a happy bridegroom, his future bright with golden visions of connubial bliss; but he returned to find himself gobbled up, and torn rudely from the side of his bride, by the relentless hand of military authority. While he had been enjoying the pleasures of his honeymoon, his substitute, doubtless convinced that a military life was not suited to his temperment, skedaddled to seek some more congenial pursuit. So the newly married man, minus $300, is now "keeping time to the music"  of drum and fife in the ranks of the 24th Regiment. It is not the first time that Venus and Mars had a "falling out".

A number of bachelors, over thirty-five, were drafted in Providence. On being laughed at for not being married, and thereby escaping the draft, they maliciously replied:"It is better to serve htree years than for life!"

A.M. Ramsey, a clerk in the office of the Commissary General at Washington, committed suicide by taking laudenum, on hearing that he had been drafted in the city. He was a native of Scotland and a man of scholarly accomplishments.

The Middleburg Gazette says that one of the singular incidents of the conscription in that vicinity was the drawing of the two blind brothers, John and Joseph Hatton of East Wareham.

A man named Green has been aquitted in Connecticut on a charge of instigating resistance to the draft on the grounds that he was too drunk to know what he was saying.

Of fifty-three drafted men in Enfield, Connecticut, fifty-two paid $300 each, and the other, a colored man, resolved to go to war and represent the town.

A rural conscript appeared before the Eastern Board of Enrollment a day or two since and desired to be exempted forthwith, that he might return to his country home. "What are your claims?" demanded the doctor. "I'm entirely dependant on my mother for support" was the innocent reply. Whereupon the doctor assured him that the Government would immediately relieve his mother of so unsuitable a burden.

A conscript from Columbia County, weighing about three hundred and eighty pounds, is in town for examination. As the Provost's room is too small to admit him, he will be obliged to undergo an examination outdoors. It is thought that it will take the Board one whole day to examine him all over.

Among the drafted persons in the town of Geddea, was Miss Catherine T. Sackett, better known as Aunt Katy Sackett. Her full name is Catherine Thomas Sackett, and she was enrolled as Thomas Sackett, and that name was drawn.

The New Paltz Times says John Yates, a conscript there, attempted to commit suicide by cutting his head with a corn cutter. A short time after Yates was informed that he was drafted he exhibited signs of mental affernation, and being friendless and moniless, he knew there was no alternative, and thus complete insanity is the result.

Artemus Ward says "I have already given two cousins to the war, and I stand ready to sacrifiss my wife's brother rather 'n not see the rebelyn krusht. And if wuss cums to wuss, I'll shed every drop of blud my able bodied relations has got to prosecoot the war."

One of the substitutes in the barracks Friday night by some means procured a pair of captain's straps, secured them upon his uniform, then summoning the guard, gave them renewed instructions to be watchful, as the fellows were getting uneasy, and walking out of the door with official dignity so handsomely substituted that the guard did not venture to question the genuineness of his character.

In Philadelphia a young man in the Twentieth ward was drawn as a conscript while a hearse was conveying his remains to the grave.

A New Hampshire paper says that those who went to Lebanon one day lately were shocked to see a white man there, followed by his son, whom he was endeavoring to sell at the highest price as a substitute. The man at last, after much bartering, sold his boy for $450 and pocketed the greenbacks with the coolest satisfaction, while the boy dejectedly passed into the Provost's office to report for service.

They tell a good story of the efforts making in old Newbury to fill up their quota before the draft. There was a squatter who had built his shanty right across the road that forms the boundary between the towns of Newbury and West Newbury. He said he was willing enough to enlist, if he only knew to which town he most belonged. Whereupon some "Oldtowners" hitched their teams to his domicile and quietly settled him down in Newbury.

On Tuesday the boat brought from Riker's Island the dead bodies of five colored men who had been poisoned with drugs administered by the brokers and runners, who do not seem to be satisfied with stealing the bounty belonging to these men, but in some instances they take their money and their lives also.

In Chicago the other day twenty men were drafted who had been dead for some years.

A man who had been drafted in Dalton, Conn. a day or two ago cut off the index finger of his right hand, thinking to save himself. The authorities thought it was a brave act, and rewarded the deed by accepting him on the spot.

A very fat man who was drafted in Boston the other day supposed he would be exempted on account of his obesity, but was accepted. He was known to be rich as well as fat, and the Board of Enrollment supposed he would furnish a substitute or commute, and asked him which he would do. To their surprise he refused both, and told them to "bring on their uniform." The board changed its mind and commuted him.

It is stated upon official authority that but one man out of the whole number drafted in Ohio has yet entered the service. The balance has been exempted, paid commutation, furnished substitutes or "skedaddled". Ohio's quota was 30,000.

A negro named Tom Van Dyck alias "Fancy Tom", who lives in Schoharie, is an unlucky conscript. He has been drawn three times - first in New York, and escaped because he was a non-resident, although that did not save him from brutal treatment at the hands of the mob; then at Schoharie, when he got off because he was over 35 and married; and now again. Tom fears he will have to go this time.

A detachment of recruits and bounty jumpers, when about to leave Augusta, Me. last week for the front, were found to have on a full suit of citizen's clothes under their uniforms.

The way people abhor and fear drafts is well illustrated by the late events in Ohio. Gov. Brough, in his late official message to the legislature says: "It is estimated that the number of men who fled from this state as the recent draft approached and during its execution, exceeded twenty thousand." To such an extent has this emigration gone that in some cases there were not men enough left to fill the quotas.

A promising young man in Concord, N.H. just drafted, has committed suicide.

A colored man recently auctioned himself off at Cleveland, Ohio as a substitute for $1200.

A substitute at Lockport was shot dead by the guard the other day while attempting to pass without permission. He made several attempts to apply chloroform to the guard’s face but failed and then tried to rush out and was shot.

A negro presented himself before one of the Provost Marshals in Connecticut a few days ago and was rejected because he was too old. A day or two after he again presented himself with his hair dyed and looking twenty years younger. He confessed that he had been “fixed up” for the occasion by some bounty broker.

The Indiana Banner says that a woman residing near Terre Haute put out the eyes of her son to save him from the draft. She was the mother of seven sons, one of whom had died in the army and another had suffered the amputation of his leg. To save her next oldest son from the draft she held a burning coal close to his right eye while he slept on a lounge and the optic nerve was destroyed without more than momentary pain. He has since become entirely blind. The mother is supposed to be partially deranged.

Mr. Elisha T. Sage of Cromwell, Ct. having been drafted, presented himself for examination. He got exemption papers on the grounds of having three brothers now in the United States service, but again presented himself and expressed a desire to enter the army at all events. He was accepted and after a four day furlough, reported to camp.

The New Haven Register reports that among a squad of recruits which passed through Springfield on their way to the front Friday was a Turk, who was beguiled into enlisting by a substitute broker without knowing what he was doing. The broker had robbed him of all of his money and the poor fellow was entirely disheartened. He was crying bitterly and had been mourning and weeping for three days.

A precocious young man, blessed with the name of Isaac, says that if he is drafted "Abraham will be offering up Isaac as a sacrifice".

A butternut -clad individual who had succeeded in making good his escape from the rebel conscription and reached our lines in Tennessee upon being asked if the conscription was rigid replied "I should say it is! They take every man who hasn't been dead more than two days."

Gov. Curtin is surprised to find that 60,000 men are required to fill the quota and deficiencies from that state and says that the state must have been defrauded out of bounties to about $12,000,000.

At the time of conscription in Lebanon, Pennsylvania last year the name "Davis D. Sharp" was drawn from the wheel. No such person being found in the township, the government officials pitched upon Sharp D. Lewis, a citizen of Lebanon, as the man, and he was compelled to pay three hundred dollars exemption money, a fee of thirty dollars, and other "costs".

Yesterday afternoon a German bounty broker from New York appeared at the Provost Marshal's office with a recruit whom he wanted to enlist. The would-be soldier was taken before the surgeon for examination when it was discovered that he wore false teeth; on this account he was rejected. This announcement was a damper to the broker's expectations as he expected to realize a handsome sum from his man, and besides he had been to trouble and expense in securing his man. Taking the recruit to one side he explained to him a new process by which he could discolor the false teeth so as to make them resemble his original teeth and so pass him through. The unsuspecting recruit handed the broker his teeth for the purpose, as he thought, of transforming them. The broker took them, but instead of altering their appearance he coolly pocketed them and told the recruit that when he paid the expenses of the trip he could have his teeth and not before, and walked off leaving the recruit to mourn the loss of his false teeth. After deliberation the recruit comprehended his situation and went in search of the man who had taken his teeth, but at last account he had failed to find him.

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