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and individuals began to offer bounties to stimulate lagging enlistments, varying in amount from $10 to $300; and increased in ‘63 and ‘64 until, by the addition of State bounties, a recruit, enlisting for a year, received in the fall of ‘64 from $700 to $1000 in some instances.
It was this large bounty which led old veterans to haze recruits in many ways.
Of course, there was no justification for their doing it, only as the recruits in some instances provoked it.
There was a song composed during the war, entitled the “Raw recruit,” sung to the tune of “Abraham's Daughter,” which I am wholly unable to recall, but a snatch of the first verse, or its parody, ran about as follows:--I'm a raw recruit, with a bran‘--new suit, Nine hundred dollars bounty, And I've come down from Darbytown To fight for Oxford County.
The name of the town and county were varied to suit the circumstances.
In 1863 a draft was ordered to fill the ranks of the army, as volunteers did not come for-
ward rapidly enough to meet the exigencies of the service.
Men of means, if drafted, hired a substitute, as allowed by law, to go in their stead, when patriotism failed to set them in motion.
Many of these substitutes did good service, while others became deserters immediately after enlisting.
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