Bounty jumping was not a practice in the Confederate armies. Local and state bounties may have been offered at the beginning of the war for men to voluntarily enroll in Confederate service (as opposed to state service). But these had limited value and with the looming expiration of the initial 12 month enrollments, the Confederate Congress authorized a $50 bounty to be paid to all volunteers in January of 1862. This bounty was paid to those volunteers already in the field who re-enlisted to serve for three years or the duration of the war, as well as to new recruits. This volunteer bounty got incorporated into the implementation of the Confederate Conscription Act. Those who "voluntarily complied" with the Conscription Act by enrolling without being coerced were paid the $50 bounty. Those who had to be rounded up or otherwise encouraged afterwards were not paid the $50 bounty.

In the South, all white male residents who fell within the defined military age limits were required to be enrolled in Confederate service. The age limits were 18-35 years (16 APR 1862), 18-45 years (September 1862), and 17-50 years (February 1864). Individual Confederate states passed militia laws which gathered up those who fell outside of the Confederate enrollment ages. The enrollment problem in the Confederate South was not bounty jumping. It was the growing number of deserters and the conscript avoiders - collectively the "outliers" who refused to serve.

The Northern version of conscription [the Federal Enrollment Act] began in March 1863. The pool of military age men who fell under this new law was enormous and only about 1/3 of this population ever had to serve in the Union army. In the Confederate South, with a few exceptions, everybody had to be enrolled. Beyond the few work related exemptions, you had to be dead, disabled or discharged to legally avoid military service.

Under the Enrollment Act, the Federal War Department periodically placed demands on the states by congressional district to supply a certain number of new enlistments. This quota could be satisfied by supplying additional volunteers. If they could not come up with enough new volunteers to meet their quota, the states were required to use conscription (aka the draft). Since conscription was politically distasteful, states tried to entice new volunteers by offering high dollar value enlistment bounties.

"Bounty jumpers" were those men who enlisted in one unit, collected the enlistment bounty, deserted and re-enlisted in another unit, collected another bounty, and deserted again. Depending on how clever they were, and how desperate the Federal enrollment officers were, this cycle could be repeated. This was a specific violation of the Articles of War. Those caught were tried by courts-martial and sentenced to hard labor. While bounty jumping in the North pre-dates the Federal Enrollment Act, it became more prevalent afterwards.

The "bounty jumpers" sent to Fort Delaware to serve out their court-martial sentences to hard labor were held separately from the Confederate military prisoners and the civilian detainees. They were derisively referred to by the Federal garrison as "Company Q" which was old army slang for shirkers and slackers who habitually went on sick call to get out of doing their fair share of work.

In the context of the Andersonville situation, the reference was to a "class" of Union soldiers who were not in the army for any patriotic motives, but rather just for the bounty money they could collect. They were deemed to be greedy, selfish, immoral and criminal which is how the gangs among the Union prisoners at Andersonville behaved.

Hugh Simmons
Fort Delaware Society
Website: www.fortdelaware.org
E-mail: society@fortdelaware.org