2. All persons enrolled under that act are entitled to receive (by section 15) the pay and rations now allowed by law to soldiers, according to their respective grades: Provided, That persons of African descent who should be employed under the law should receive $10 per month and one ration each per day, of which $3 might be paid in clothing. By the act of March 3, 1863, cooks of African descent are entitled to receive for their full compensation $10 per month and one ration each per day, $3 of which monthly pay may be in clothing.

It seems, therefore, that in accordance with the foregoing acts persons of African descent received into the service of the United States as volunteers under said act are entitled to receive as pay $10 per month and one ration daily, of which monthly pay $3 per month may be in clothing.

WILLIAM WHITING,

Solicitor of the War Department.

APRIL 25, 1863.

Congress made a distinction, especially in the matter of bounty, between white and colored troops, and continued it up to July, 1864, as shown in this report, under the head of "Colored men and their relation to the military service." It does not appear whether this resulted, or from the general principles governing supply and demand, or from a supposed difference in the value as soldiers of these two classes of persons.

The Solicitor, when consulted on the particular point of accepting negroes as substitutes for white men, under the draft then being made, as of opinion that it would not be in accordance with the meaning and intention of the laws in force at the time to do so. In compliance with special instructions from the President, an order was issued on the 20th of July, 1863, a directing that men of African descent should only be accepted as substitutes for each other.

Exemption of clergymen and persons of conscientious scruples, &c.

Under the law as it stood at the time this draft was made, no exemptions were allowed on account of religious creeds or consci against bearing arms. The amendments approved February 24, 1864, however, granted exemptions to persons of this class, under certain strict limitations. The action of the Bureau in this matter is shown in the following report, in answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives.*

Under the original act embarrassment frequently arose in the attempt to secure, as required by law, military service under the draft from ministers of the gospel, but more especially from members of the society of "Friends, or Quakers." The experience of the Bureau, in this respect, was substantialhat of the Government during the ante-Revolutionary period, with the same class of persons.b

The call of October 17, 1863.

As heretofore stated, the draft discussed in the foregoing produced by its direct operation but 35,882 men, of whom 26,002 were substitutes. This number was far below the re-enforcements required by the armies, which had been greatly depleted by the campaigns of the summer. Their commanders being very urgent in their demands for additional men, a plan was devised under the law to procure them with the fund accumulated by the payment of exemption money under this draft. Fifty-two thousand two hundred and eighty-eight of the drafted men examined, found liable and fit to perform military.

a See Appendix, Doc. 24, Art. 1.

b See Appendix, Doc. 31.

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*See Fry to Stanton, February 7, 1865, Vol. IV, this series, p. 1154.

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