Name/Title
1864 Certificate of Exemption on Account of Having Furnished a Substitute Samuel Weeks $600.00Entry/Object ID
10094Tags
Samuel Weeks, Civil WarScope and Content
Certificate of Exemption, Civil War, 1864 September, Samuel C Weeks
(AI) "CERTIFICATE OF EXEMPTION ON ACCOUNT OF HAVING FURNISHED A SUBSTITUTE."
The Details of the Drafted Man
The fields are neatly filled out in mid-19th-century cursive script, giving us a vivid physical and historical snapshot of the man in question:
The Name: Samuel C. Weeks
The Location: 5th District of the State of New Jersey, specifically the City of Newark, County of Essex.
Physical Description: * Age: 39
Height: 5 feet, 9 inches
Complexion: Fair
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Brown
The Date of Draft: September 23, 1864 (by Captain H.J. Mills).
The Exemption Period: 1 Year.
The Signing Date: Dated at Newark, N.J., on October 18, 1864—signed by the local Provost Marshal, a Board of Enrollment member, and the Board Surgeon.
💡 The Historical Context: The Substitute System
When the Union instituted its first wartime draft under the Enrollment Act of 1863, the law included a provision that sounds shocking to modern ears: if a man was drafted, he could legally avoid military service by either paying a $300 commutation fee directly to the government or by hiring an acceptable substitute to go to war in his place.
The Red Ink Margin Note
Look closely at the left margin, where someone has written vital financial notes in red ink:
"Jersey City Sub-district Bond No. 151 for $600.00 found, had to specify city and is cash."
This note is incredibly telling. While the standard commutation fee was $300, by late 1864, the demand for physical substitutes skyrocketed, and the market price to hire a person to fight on your behalf often doubled to $600 or more (roughly equivalent to a couple of years' wages for a laborer at the time). Towns and cities even issued local "draft bonds" to help citizens raise the money so their workforce wouldn't be completely depleted.
Because Samuel Weeks furnished a substitute, he received this paper, ensuring that the Union army would not come knocking on his door for at least the next year. value ?