August 8, 1862
On August 8, 1862, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, under the authority of President Abraham Lincoln, issued an order making it it illegal of men eligible for conscription to leave the United States and suspending the constitutionally guaranteed writ of habeas corpus for persons accused of disloyal activites.
WAR DEPARTMENT,
Washington City, D. C., August 8, 1862.
Order to prevent evasion of military duty and for the suppression of disloyal practices.
First – By direction of the President of the United States, it is hereby ordered that until further order, no citizen liable to be drafted into the militia shall be allowed to go to a foreign country, and all Marshals, Deputy Marshals, and military officers of the United States, are directed, and all police authorities, especially at the ports of the United States, on the sea-board, and on the frontier, are requested to see that this order is faithfully carried into effect. And they are hereby authorized and directed to arrest and detain any person or persons about to depart from the United States, in violation of this order, and report to L. C. Turner, judge-advocate, at Washington City, for further instructions respecting the person or persons so arrested or detained.
Second – Any person liable to draft, who shall absent himself from his county or State, before such draft is made, will be arrested by any Provost-Marshal or other United States, or State officer, wherever he may be found within the jurisdiction of the United States, and be conveyed to the nearest military post or depot and placed on military duty for the term of the draft; and the expenses of his own arrest and conveyance to such post or depot and also the sum of five dollars as a reward to the officer who shall make such arrest shall be deducted from his pay.
Third – The writ of habeas corpus is hereby suspended in respect to all persons so arrested and detained, and in respect to all persons arrested for disloyal practices.
EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War
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