Biography
Lindley M. Macomber, a Vermont Quaker, was drafted in 1863 together with Cyrus Pringle and Peter Dakin and, like them, refused to serve, to pay the commutation fee, or to hire a substitute. Held under military discipline in camps in Vermont and Virginia, the three men were finally paroled by the personal order of President Lincoln in November 1863.
Lindley M. Macomber, a Quaker from Grand Isle, Vermont, was one of three Vermont Quakers drafted into the Union Army on July 13, 1863, who refused both to bear arms and — as a compromise of principle — to pay the $300 commutation fee. Sent to the Army of the Potomac in Virginia, the men were pressured, threatened, and abused; at Culpeper on October 3, 1863, they were staked spread-eagle to the ground for hours. When Secretary of War Edwin Stanton learned of it he had "the three incorrigibles" brought to Washington, and on November 7, 1863 they were released at the personal wish of President Lincoln.
