Confederate States of America. Bureau of Conscription

The Confederate States of America Bureau of Conscription, 7th North Carolina Congressional District included Anson, Chatham, Davidson, Montgomery, Moore, Randolph, and Stanly counties, and was responsible to the state conscript office at Raleigh, N.C. District offices were concerned with enrollment, exemptions, substitutes, work details, partially disabled soldiers on limited service, senior reserves, deserters and other absentees from active units, and manpower problems. The district enrolling officer was John M. Little, with headquarters at Wadesboro, N.C., until February 1864 when he was succeeded by D. C. Pearson who had headquarters at Lexington, N.C. The commandant of conscripts for North Carolina was Colonel Peter Mallett, who was succeeded in the Raleigh office in October 1864 by Lieutenant General T. H. Holmes. The state conscript officer was responsible to the Bureau of Conscription of the Confederate War Department at Richmond, Va., under John S. Preston.

While initially a volunteer army, the Army of the Confederate States of America instituted three conscription acts during the Civil War, beginning in 1862. The CSA Bureau of Conscription enlisted both conscripted men and volunteers into service. C.S. Plank (b. ca. 1826) was from Augusta, Georgia. In 1864, at the age of 38, he was conscripted to work for the Southern Express Company for the Confederate States of America. The Southern Express Co. was established on May 1, 1861, by Alvin Adams and Henry Bradley Plant. Both Northerners, these men created the new company under the guise of it being a Southern company, as the CSA began confiscating all Northern-owned establishments in the South. The Southern Express Co., a railroad company, initially carried packages and letters between the North and South, until this practice was banned.