Conscription - Battle of Nashville & Beyond

1861 Draft in Tennessee?

This is from the diary of my GGG Uncle Lt. David Phillips , 7th Infantry Tennessee, CSA:

December 13th, 1861 – in camp 2 -3 miles south of Staunton, Virginia

“December 13th. Day fine. Archie and I had a regular old corn shucking scuffle. It was ‘give and take’ for some time; finally Archie was routed, having got a sore knee and a bruised hand. During the contest we rendered tent ‘hors du combat’ by knocking it down. Captain Bostic got back from home at night; boys glad to see him. He brought a great many letters for the regiment. None for me. Through some that he brought I learned with regret that Tommy, Levi, and Luster had been drafted. Bad news from, all quarters about home*.”

Luster Henderson is also my GGG Uncle through marriage in latter generations. He was the oldest son of Preston Henderson of Henderson’s Crossroads (now Norene, Tennessee). Born in 1826, he was 35 years old in 1861.

This is bad news to David: “with regret that Tommy, Levi, and Luster had been drafted”. Was he regretting that the Confederacy has drafted his friend in Wilson County, that had ridden with him all the way to Nashville to send him off to fight with General Hatton in Virginia? Was Tennessee’s governor Isham Harris calling for them? Or was President Lincoln’s call for 2 Regiments of Tennessee volunteers, more than just a request?

Luster (Lus) Henderson and his two brothers, Jeremiah and John, joined the Confederate Army. John Bond enlisted in Huntsville, Alabama December 9, 1961. Lus and John with Forrests 3rd Cavalry Company D. Jeremiah Tucker (Tuck) with the 9th Battalion TN. They would fight in the Battle of Shiloh the following spring.

“On August 8, 1861, the Confederacy called for 400,000 volunteers to serve for one or three years. In April 1862,^[12] the Confederacy passed the first conscription law in U.S. history, the Conscription Act,^[13] which made all able bodied white men between the ages of 18 and 35 liable for a three-year term of service in the PACS. It also extended the terms of enlistment for all one-year soldiers to three years. Men employed in certain occupations considered to be most valuable for the home front (such as railroad and river workers, civil officials, telegraph operators, miners, druggists and teachers) were exempt from the draft.^[14] The act was amended twice in 1862. On September 27, the maximum age of conscription was extended to 45.^[15] On October 11, the Confederate Congress passed the so-called “Twenty Negro Law“,^[16] which exempted anyone who owned 20 or more slaves, a move that caused deep resentment among conscripts who did not own slaves.” – Wikipedia