Draft Resistance in Civil War Pennsylvania
HISTORIANS have long known that Civil War conscription was greeted with less than unreserved enthusiasm in New York, where draft riots erupted in 1863, in the Middle West, where Copperheadism flourished, and in the border states, where slaveowners and others viewed the Union government with uneasy eyes. But there was at least one more area in which the draft was exceedingly unpopular. This was Pennsylvania. An examination of contemporary newspapers and federal provost marshal records stored in the National Archives strongly suggests that opposition to conscription in the Keystone State was as widespread as in any other state of the North. Pennsylvanians, however, have been justly proud of their state's war record, for by April, 1865, perhaps as many as 320,000 residents of the state had donned the blue, a figure exceeded only by the more populous Empire State. As late as the summer of 1862, Pennsylvania with a population of less than three million had more men in uniform than New York with a population of nearly four million. But as the war became more onerous, provost marshals barely had time to solve problems in one township before difficulties arose in two others. Most frightening of all, there were stories of alleged conspiracies to resist the draft and to aid the Confederacy in Berks, Columbia, and Clearfield Counties. Though tales about these disloyal groups were often exaggerated, it was true that several officials were murdered while carrying out their official duties and that desertions were common in Pennsylvania. In 1861, after it had become apparent that the war would last years rather than weeks or months, many ninety-day volunteers