This is a substitute soldier certificate, whereby a man (Siebert) has agreed to fight in the civil war for a sum of $300 in the place of another man who was drafted. This demonstrates the policy of the time whereby one could pay $300 or supply a substitute soldier to get out of going to war. During the war the Union experienced a manpower shortage and, as a result, President Lincoln signed the first conscription act in U.S. history on March 3, 1863 which drafted men between the ages of 18 and 35 into military service. For one week in July of 1863, the discontent with these laws culminated in a series of riots in New York City which resulted violence against African Americans and the destruction of P.T. Barnum’s museum of oddities. The riot was eventually quelled by Union troops.
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