In a book I'm currently reading, I just finished a chapter on the Confederate conscription law. The author cited an incident I thought you'd enjoy. It's a hoot.

When the Confederate Congress finally enacted legislation to curtail the abuses of exemptions from conscription, some men tried all sorts of gambits to avoid service. Here's the best one I ever heard of --

"One ardent speculator even sought the War Department and logically proved that, having sent a substitute, who was virtually himself, and that substitute having been killed, he himself was a dead man, from whom the law could claim no service."

The guy may have been a shirker, but you have to kind of admire his ingenuity.