30 



ARMY, CONFEDERATE. 



month, has adopted a constitution and submitted it 

 to you for your approval or rejection. That constitu- 

 tion is based upon the principles of freedom, and it 

 is for you now to say, by your voluntary and un- 

 biased action, whether it shall be your fundamental 

 law. While it may have defects in the main, it is in 

 accordance with the views of that portion of the peo- 

 ple who have been resisting the fratricidal attempts 

 which have been made during the last three years. 

 The Convention has fixed the 14th day of March next 

 on which to decide this great question, and the 

 General Commanding is only following the instruc- 

 tions of the Government when he says to you that 

 every facility will be offered for the expression of 

 your sentiments, uninfluenced by any considerations 

 save those which affect your own interests and those 

 of your posterity. If you will institute a government 

 of your own, he feels great confidence in assuring 

 you that quiet and security will soon be restored to 

 your entire State. Those who have been unwisely 

 led, by the counsel of bad men, to engage in this 

 unjustifiable and wicked rebellion, will speedily re- 

 turn and acknowledge the rightful sovereignty of 

 the State, as well as the supremacy of the JSational 

 Government over the whole domain, and peace will 

 prevail throughout the land. The. election will be 

 held and the return be made in accordance with the 

 schedule adopted by the Convention, and no inter- 

 ference from any quarter will be allowed to prevent 

 the free expression of the loyal men of the State on 

 that day. The schedule will be hereto appended to 

 render the election valid. There must be cast five 

 thousand four hundred and six votes. 



FRED. STEELE, 

 Major-General Commanding. 



The popular vote on the Constitution as re- 

 turned, was 12,177 in its favor, and 226 against 

 it. There was also chosen at said election a 

 Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Secretary of 

 State, Auditor, State Treasurer, Attorney-Gen- 

 eral, three Supreme Court Judges, three mem- 

 bers of Congress, six out of nine Circuit Judges, 

 seven of nine Prosecuting Attorneys, twenty- 

 three out of twenty-five State Senators, fifty- 

 nine out of seventy-five members of the As- 

 sembly. The counties also elected Sheriffs, 

 County and Circuit Clerks, County and Pro- 

 bate Judges, Treasurers, Coroners, School Com- 

 missioners, Surgeons, Justices, and Constables. 

 The Legislature assembled on April 25th, and 

 elected William Fishback and Elisha Baxter 

 Senators to Congress in "Washington. The 

 question relative to their admission to seats 

 was discussed, but not decided by the Senate. 



On September 22d, the rebel Legislature of 

 the State assembled. Thirteen members were 

 present in the Senate, and forty in the House. 

 A message was delivered by the rebel Govern- 

 or Hannigan, and A. P. Garland was elected 

 to the Congress at Richmond Albert Pike 

 being the opposing candidate. 



ARMY, CONFEDERATE. The acts of the 

 Congress at Richmond, by which their armies 

 were formed, were revised at the beginning of 

 1864. On December 28, 1863, it was enacted 

 that no person liable to military service should 

 be permitted, or allowed to furnish a substitute 

 for such service; on January 5, 1864, it was 

 enacted that no person liable to military ser- 

 vice should be exempted by reason of his hav- 

 ing furnished a substitute. In February, a 



general military act was passed, which provided 

 as follows : 



1. That all white men, residents of the Confederate 

 States, between the ages of seventeen and fifty, shall 

 be in the military service of the Confederate States 

 during the war. 



2. That all between the ages of eighteen and forty- 

 five now in service shall be retained during the pres- 

 ent war in the same organizations in which they were 

 serving at the passage of this act, unless they are 

 regularly discharged or transferred. 



4. That no person shall be relieved from the opera- 

 tion of this act by reason of having been discharged, 

 where no disability now exists, nor by reason of 

 having furnished a substitute; but no person who 

 has' heretofore been exempted on account of relig- 

 ious opinions, and paid the required tax, shall be re- 

 quired to render military service. 



5. That all between seventeen and eighteen years 

 and forty-five and fifty years of age shall form a re- 

 serve corps, not to serve out of the State in which 

 they reside. 



7. That any person of the last named failing to 

 attend at the place of rendezvous within thirty days, 

 as required by the President, without a sufficient rea- 

 son, shall be made to serve in the field during the war. 



8. That all the duties of provost and hospital guards 

 and clerks, and of clerks, guards, agents, employes, 

 or laborers, in the Commissary and Quartermaster 

 Department, in the Ordnance Bureau and Navy 

 Department, and all similar duties, shall be perform- 

 ed by persons who are declared, by a board of sur- 

 geons, as unable to perform military service in the 

 field. The President may detail such bodies of 

 troops or individuals required to be enrolled under 

 the fifth section of this act (between the ages of forty- 

 five and fifty) as may be needed for the discharge of 

 such duties. Persons between seventeen and eighteen 

 years of age shall not be assigned to such duties. 

 The President is empowered to detail artisans, me- 

 chanics, or persons of scientific skill, to perform in- 

 dispensable duties in the departments or bureaus 

 herein mentioned. 



9. That any Quartermaster, or Assistant Quarter- 

 master, Commissary, or Assistant Commissary (other 

 than those serving with organizations in the field), 

 or other officer in the Ordnance Bureau, or Navy 

 Agent, or Provost-Marshal, or officer in the conscript 

 service, who shall hereafter retain or employ auy 

 person subject to military duty, as herein provided", 

 shall be cashiered. 



10. Kepeals all existing exemption laws, and ex- 

 empts the following : 



1. All who shall oe held unfit for military service, 

 under rules to be prescribed by the Secretary of War. 



2. The Vice-President of the Confederate States, 

 the members and officers of Congress, of the several 

 State Legislatures, and such other Confederate and 

 State officers as the President or the Governors of 

 the respective States may certify to be necessary for 

 the proper administration of the Confederate or State 

 Governments, as the case may be. 



3. Every minister of religion authorized to preach 

 according to the rules of his church, and who, at the 

 passage of this act, shall be regularly employed in 

 the discharge of his ministerial duties ; superintend- 

 ents and physicians of asylums of the deaf, dumb, 

 blind, and insane ; one editor for each newspaper be- 

 ing published at the time of the passage of this act, 

 and such employes as said editor may certify on 

 oath to be indispensable to the publication of such 

 newspaper; the public printer of the Confederate 

 and State Governments, and such journeymen print- 

 ers as the said public printer shall certify on oath to 

 be indispensable to perform the public printing; one 

 skilled apothecary in each apothecary store who was 

 doing business as such apothecary on the 10th day 

 of October, 1862, and has continued said business with- 

 out intermission since that period ; all physicians over 



