Military conscription roiled Litchfield County in 1862

Military conscription roiled Litchfield County in 1862
Historian Peter Vermilyea led Falls Village-Canaan Historical Society’s first talk of the summer at the South Canaan Meeting House on June 6. 
Photo by Riley Klein

FALLS VILLAGE — Falls Village-Canaan Historical Society’s “First Tuesday at 7” lecture series began on June 6 at the South Canaan Meeting House.

Peter Vermilyea, who teaches history at the University of Connecticut and Housatonic Valley Regional High School, opened the series with a talk titled “The Strange Case of Dr. Beckwith: The Problem of Medical Examinations in the Civil War.”

Vermilyea’s talk highlighted a chapter from his upcoming book that examines Litchfield County during the led up to the Civil War.

Vermilyea explained that in the summer of 1862, congress authorized military conscription for the first time in the United States. Up to that point, all militias had relied on volunteer service.

“After August of 1862, there’s going to be a draft. And if you’re going to have a draft, you have to figure out who is exempt,” said Vermilyea.

The federal government created service quotas for each state but offered minimal guidance on who to exempt for the draft, citing only “people of great deformity of body or limb, permanent lameness, or loss of eye.”

To determine who should be exempt, the surgeon general of each state appointed three doctors per county to provide medical examinations and certificates of exemption, which would then be approved or denied by each town’s selectmen.

The three doctors in Litchfield County were Dr. Josiah Beckwith in Litchfield, Dr. James Welch in Winsted, and Dr. Sydney Lyman in Washington. Vermilyea said that each exam “costs a quarter whether you get an exemption or not.”

Beckwith began evaluating men aged 18 to 44 in Litchfield on Aug. 7, 1862, to determine if they were fit to serve. By Aug. 12, he had provided certificates of exemption to 691 of the 739 men that came for evaluations.

“There’s maybe about 7,500 men in the county and 10% of them show up at Dr. Beckwith’s office in three and a half days,” said Vermilyea. “If he was open 20 hours a day, that’s like 12 men an hour coming through and 91% of them are getting exempt.”

These results prompted suspicion in the local newspapers with the Winsted Herald writing, “We have observed Litchfield to be lively with not precisely the lame, the halt, and the blind, but so far as we can see, stout, able-bodied men anxiously inquiring the way to the doctor’s dispenser.”

“He was accused of accepting payment in exchange for a certificate, of playing party politics, of using his position as a medical examiner to make political statements about the war, and of having quote, ‘secessionist proclivities’,” said Vermilyea.

News quickly reached Hartford and Beckwith was asked to meet with Connecticut’s surgeon general on Aug. 10.

“He sat down in front of the surgeon general…and he’s asked to explain himself,” said Vermilyea. “He’s back in Litchfield by 5 p.m. on the second day and he opens his doors for business the next day. So, he has cleared his name.”

Beckwith returned to business as usual on Aug. 12, but at noon of that day he received a telegram from the surgeon general suspending his license as a medical examiner for the war. Following the suspension, he wrote a column in the Litchfield Enquirer in an attempt to salvage his reputation.

Vermilyea paraphrased Beckwith’s words, saying “I didn’t exempt anyone. I just put what I saw in these men and passed that along to the selectmen and they rubber-stamped all of it.”

Beckwith’s reputation did not recover, and he worked the rest of his days as a pharmacist.

The men that received medical exemptions for the war were ridiculed by the public. Vermilyea cited Woodbury’s Board of Selectmen, who approved every medical exemption they received, as an example of how the exempt were treated.

“They accepted every one of them and then voted to publish the names of the men, with their medical condition, and a whole bunch of snarky comments under the heading of ‘Certified Cowards’,” said Vermilyea.

He read from the list, “Frederick Bolton was diagnosed with a stiff shoulder, congestion of lungs, and tendency to consumption. But they put in italics ‘is known to walk five miles daily to his labor, does overwork in the factory, and can hold two 56-pound weights.’”

Vermilyea felt hyper-patriotism was the root cause behind the mindset of society at that time.

“I think the story is the way that Beckwith and the men were treated by the community,” said Vermilyea. “War fever had whipped up this frenzy that you were either a hero or a coward.”

When Connecticut eventually sent draft letters to 1,200 men, all but 12 (99%) of them furnished medical certificates of exemption. The state resorted to cash bounties in exchange for military service in order to fill Lincoln’s quota.

Vermilyea’s newest book is due to be published in the winter of 2024.

The next talk is Tuesday, July 11 with Dave Jacobs on  “Early Housatonic Railroad Freight Operations.”

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