William H. Antrim in Pennsylvania?

In Frederick Nolan’s The West of Billy the Kid, he states that

“in 1863, while working as a teamster in Philadelphia, [Antrim] filed suit against the government for wrongful drafting and took his case successfully to the Supreme Court. By the time their verdict was handed down, Antrim had moved to Indianapolis.”

In looking at the source documentation for this, I believe that the William Antrim of Philadelphia is not the same person as our William Antrim, step-father of Billy the Kid.

The case Nolan refers to heard by the United States District Court on September 9, 1863 in Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia Inquirer of September 10, 1863 describes the case, telling how Antrim was drafted, and claimed exemption due to his being the only son of a widowed mother, and thus her only support.

If this is the same William Antrim, then he was lying to the Supreme Court in his draft case: Antrim’s father Levi was still very much alive, and William was most certainly not an only son.

This seems, however, to be merely a case of mistaken identity on the part of researchers. I can find no documentation that shows that William Antrim, son of Levi and Mary Antrim, was ever in Philadelphia for any reason.

Also worth pondering, why would the future step-father of Billy the Kid contest being drafted due to having to support his widowed mother, only to move to Indianapolis and enlist there?

The only citation Nolan provides for this general passage on Antrim (which includes this bit about Pennsylvania) is the research of Philip J. Rasch, in his article A Man Named Antrim, published in the 1956 Los Angeles Westerners Brand Book 6, but a perusal of that article fails to show any mention of a stay in Pennsylvania or a reference to the other Antrim’s court case. It’s not clear where Nolan got this specific information, if not from Rasch.