What was Militia Draft of 1862

An act enacted on Jul. 17, 1862, empowering the secretary of war to draft for nine months those state militias that fail to upgrade. It is a de facto national draft and occasions the expansion of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus nationwide on the Florida pattern. The act results in a series of orders issued by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton proscribing flight to evade military service and any act or word challenging the draft. It is finalized in Stanton's General Order No. 104. A horde of minor functionaries is tasked to determine loyalty/disloyalty and many innocent detainees' reputations are ruined. Stanton assigns Judge Advocate Levi C. Turner to schedule trials, not to act as a watchdog as he does, seeking to rein in overzealous constables and prompt reluctant ones to do their duty. For a brief period, sweeping, uncoordinated, unfeeling arrests in the North mark the low point of U.S. civil liberties.