The Missouri in the Civil War Message Board

conscription/impressment

I suspect I haven't found the right word to describe what I want to inquire about. A brother of my ggrandfather, named Frank Schaaf, described his experience in his own words late in life.

He was an orphaned boy from Baden whose father died upon arriving around Cape Girardeau or Ste. Genevieve in about 1850-52. For whatever reason overall, he was still there in the early 1860's when the War was ramping up. His story is that he was seized by a bunch of armed men and taken to a camp that could have been 50-60 miles away. He says the young men were held there in anticipation of selling their military service to whichever side or command would pay the most for them.

He apparently knew something of smithing or farrier work, for, after a time, he was trusted enough (not held in a stockade or chains) to be able to escape one night, and rode straight through until he reached whatever town he lived in. There, he was unable to get anyone to help him at all, the residents all fearing retribution from ???. So, he got across to Illinois and eventually reached a married sister in Peoria, Sophia. She helped him, he worked and married and eventually had a blacksmith shop in Chandlerville, IL. So far as I know, he never served in any army during the Civil War.

My question is whether there is any information from any other source that might confirm the kind of kidnapping that he suffered. Impressment by one side or the other is not unusual, probably not so different than the 'draft', but by a neutral group who seized men to sell them to the highest bidder? True or False? Embellishment? Or did he actually desert from some more or less official military group?

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