Bounty jumper

The Enrollment Act of 1863 instituted conscription but allowed individuals to pay a bounty to someone else to fight in their place.

A month after the Battle of Fort Sumter the United States Congress passed a law allowing for bounties up to $300.

During the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in 1864, one bounty jumper who was a member of the 35th Massachusetts Regiment shouted "Retreat!"

[8] Toward the end of the war, detective Lafayette Baker captured 183 bounty jumpers in a single day by having an infamous broker named Theodore Allen help him use a fake recruitment office; ironically, Allen eventually ran off to Canada with $50,000 that was intended for capturing the bounty jumpers.

The most notable execution of bounty jumpers in the Union Army took place at Beverly Ford, Virginia on August 29, 1863.

[13] At Governor's Island in early 1865, bounty jumper James Develin was executed; he had been turned in by his wife after she caught him with another woman.

[8] Bounty jumpers were more likely to receive death sentences than those deserters who left due to homesickness, or to help the family farm, or simply as a lark against authority.

[14] In another incident, a bounty jumper attempting to escape his captors was shot when one of them overtook him, placing the pistol directly to the back of the man's head while both were running.