End the All-Volunteer Force

[AmericanPride]

Based on your previous record, I'm not sure if you will.

I'm not really concerned about my reputation on a fairly anonymous online message board.

"In March 1863, the federal government elected to centralize and normalize conscription. The process adopted by the government divided conscription areas by congressional district. If a district failed to reach the quota number of volunteers, a draft lottery was then initiated. Once conscripted, the potential draftee underwent a series of examinations to determine medical fitness and the existence of hardship. Upon passing these requirements, the draftee had ten days to hire a substitute, pay a three-hundred dollar commutation fee, or join the army. Of the 292,441 names drawn during 1863, about 190,000 men were waived due to medical disability or hardship, 52,000 paid the commutation fee, and about 26,000 provided a substitute. In the end, 9,811 men, or three percent of men became conscripts.(emphasis mine)"

Now this is the kind of response that I was expecting from people of this site's caliber. And the figures for 1864?

A cursory search doesn't turn up much regarding this flow of personnel, but that's where you'd have to start to determine if that slice was significant. My take at this stage is that it was not significant.

I agree, which is why I have gone no further than claiming that 8.5% of Union soldiers were conscripts, and on the basis of that figure alone, draftees had a substantial impact on the war's outcome.

A well-researched article on the impact of the draft in two Wisconsin communities can be found here. One line in his concluding paragraph is interesting: "I believe it is important to note again that the purpose of the draft was to stimulate volunteerism through the threat of conscription."

That's an interesting finding, and demonstrates the utility of the draft in more than simply directly fulfilling manpower requirements.