Mennonite Handbook of Information/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII
MENNONITES DURING THE CIVIL WAR
The military laws during the Civil War were very exacting, requiring that all men capable of service should enter the ranks at ages ranging from eighteen to forty-five years. Because of the extremity for man-power in the Southern Confederacy being reached at an early period of the War, the age limit was changed to seventeen to sixty years. In the North the laws were less stringent, as the man-power was greater, and it was not until toward the latter part of the war that draft laws were enforced.
The exemption laws were of benefit to few, and court-martial and heavy fines awaited all who failed to respond to the general call for troops. In the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where Mennonites of the Southern States were chiefly located, many of the men of this faith were drafted and forcibly taken into the army.
Some of these went from their homes leaving the solemn pledge with loved ones that they would not strike a blow, or fire a gun at the enemy. In time the purpose and conviction of these brethren became known, and they were reported to officers higher up. They were threatened with court-martial and the death sentence, but no change followed in their attitude toward the enemy. Finally they were released from bearing arms, and were assigned to other lines of service, such as cooking meals and the driving of teams.
After serving in these different capacities through the campaign of 1861 62, most of these brethren found their way back to their homes, where some time was spent keeping hidden away from the observation of army officials. Finding this experience very unsafe, they passed through the border lines as refugees to the western and northern states, to remain until after the close of the war between the states. On one of these perilous journeys, a company of about seventy refugees was captured by a small body of southern troops and were taken as prisoners of war to the famous Libby Prison at Richmond, Va., where after being held for nearly two months they were liberated by action of the Confederate government on conditions that each became responsible for the payment of five hundred dollars into the Confederate treasury. Most of the prisoners being Mennoriites, the Church at home provided the money and the brethren were permitted to return to their homes where they received a most joyful reception.
The great property loss sustained by Mennonites was during the raids made by the Confederate armies into the Cumberland Valley, into Maryland and Pennsylvania, and by the Federal armies into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and elsewhere.
In all these sections the destructive effects of war became manifest in robbery, burnings, the slaughtering and driving away of live stock of all kinds, the plundering of homes with the abuse and humiliation of the inmates by an unrestrained soldiery which bespoke the awful verdict that war is relentless and cruel wherever its effects are felt, and that the path of strife and bloodshed ever leads to destruction and death.
Unlike the wars of 1812 and with Mexico, instead of Mennonites becoming rich and independent because of great profits made in the sale of food products, they, as a people, in the portions of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia were thrown backward financially no less than fifty years on account of the devastating consequences of the Civil War.
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR
A conflict of arms broke out early in the year 1908 between the United States and Spain and was concluded with the magnanimous terms of peace in which a conquering country paid the conquered country the sum of $20,000,000 as one of the terms of the treaty. '
President McKinley called for 125,000 volunteers. This quota of men was supplied without the enrollment of one known Mennonite, though numbers having Mennonite parentage are known to have enlisted, and some who lost their lives, were of Mennonite blood.
A war where only volunteers enlist affords an excellent opportunity for people of nonresistant faith to show where their place is in time of war. It is only when the draft laws are enforced that it often happens that the real position'. of Mennonites is not understood by the authorites_in charge of the war machine, and that bonds, fines, and imprisonments become their lot.