Doc. 39.-rebel conscription.
Proclamation by Jefferson Davis.
whereas, it is provided by an act of Congress, entitled, “An act to further provide for the public defence,” approved on the sixteenth day of April, 1862, and by another act of Congress, approved on the twenty-seventh September, 1862, entitled, “An act to amend an act entitled an act to provide further for the public defence,” approved sixteenth April, 1862, that the President be authorized to call out and place in the military service of the confederate States, for three years, unless the war shall have sooner ended, all white men who are residents of the confederate States between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, at the time the call may be made, and who are not at such time legally exempted from military service, or such part thereof as in his judgment may be necessary to the public defence.
And whereas, in my judgment the necessities of the public defence require that every man capable of bearing arms, between the ages aforesaid, should now be called out to do his duty in the defence of his country, and in driving back the invaders now within the limits of the Confederacy.
Now, therefore, I, Jefferson Davis, President of the confederate States of America, do by virtue of the powers vested in me as aforesaid, call out and place in the military service of the confederate States, all white men residents of said States between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, not legally exempted from military service; and I do hereby order and direct that all persons subject to this call and not now in the military service, do, upon being enrolled, forthwith repair to the conscript camps established in the respective States of which they may be residents, under pain of being held and punished as deserters in the event of their failure to obey this call, as provided in said laws.
And I do further order and direct that the enrolling officers of the several States proceed at once to enroll all persons embraced within the terms of this proclamation, and not heretofore enrolled.
And I do further order that it shall be lawful for any person embraced within this call to volunteer for service before enrolment, and that persons so volunteering be allowed to select the arm of service and the company which they desire to join, provided such company be deficient in the full number of men allowed by law for its organization.
Given under my hand and the seal of the confederate States of America, at the city of Richmond, this fifteenth day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three.
