In early February 1865, with the Civil War grinding to an end, Henry Kauphusman reported to the draft office in Rochester, nervously clutching an official draft notice that almost certainly meant he would soon be off to join "Father Abraham's Army." But this was not an army Henry Kauphusman wanted to join.
Henry was a short, robust young man with broad shoulders and chin whiskers that looked like the working end of a paint brush - whiskers he wore proudly to show he was no longer a boy but a man. At age 26, Henry Kauphusman was in the prime of life, strong enough from years of farm work in both his native Prussia and now America to lift a lumber wagon by himself when a wheel needed replacing. No - bad health would not get him out of military service.
Back home on a hilltop in Winona County, young Henry and his fellow immigrants were clearing land for farm fields. Three log cabins huddled close together on the hilltop, high prairie land topped by tough sod that had never been turned by a plow. In one cabin, lived Henry's parents. In a second lived Henry's younger brother, his wife and their children. The third cabin was Henry's, where Henry lived with his young wife and one-year old son. No - Henry Kauphusman was not eager at all to go off to war to preserve a Union he barely knew.
A year earlier, Henry's brother Liborius Kauphusman had been drafted, too. But Liborius, a quick lad who would one day be elected to a seat in the Minnesota Legislature, found a way out through a loophole in the draft law - the commutation clause. Pay the U.S. government $300 and you "commuted" your military obligation. No wealthy man unwilling to serve was ever drafted in the Civil War, prompting cries of "Rich man's war, poor man's fight." Young Henry was not so sure about commutation, though. Three-hundred dollars was an enormous sum of money - as much was what the average working man made in a year.
Now Henry was in the back of the draft board offices, undressing so the doctor could examine him for any disabilities affecting his military fitness. "Mein eyes," Henry told the doctor. "Nein, nein - no goodt." He suffered from dimness of vision, Henry added in his thick Prussian accent.
The doctor grunted. After two years examining draftees, he had heard a litany of ailments from men not wanting to go off to war. There was not a malady existing in the medical literature that he had not been cited. The doctor - Dr. William W. Mayo, who later went on to found the Mayo Clinic - finished the examination, then turned to a clerk sitting nearby with an opened ledger.
"Height - five feet six inches," Dr. Mayo rattled off. "Eye color - light blue. Hair - brown. Complexion - fair." The clerk carefully set down the information in the ledger, then paused. There was one more line in the ledger to fill, the last line - and the most important. The clerk's eyes locked on Dr. Mayo's. "Not exempt," the doctor murmured.
Henry Kauphusman's face fell. His claim to bad eyes was rejected. The young man with the chin whiskers and thick Prussian accent would be going off to join the Union Army. Fortune, though, smiled on young Henry. On April 9, 1865, six weeks after Dr. Mayo said "nein" to Henry's bad vision claim, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Commander Ulysses S. Grant at a small Virginia crossroads town called Appomattox Courthouse. The Civil War was over.
All the drafted men waiting to be formally mustered into the Army and given a free suit of Union blue were released from duty. Henry Kauphusman could stay on the half-cleared farmstead he shared with his wife and young son, raise half a dozen more children and live a full life that lasted another thirty years. Young Henry was one last escapee from "Father Abraham's Army."
