Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post
As I have stated before, this information piques my curiosity, and it would be interesting to discover just how far that 8.5% really went; though, quite frankly, whether or not conscription played a major role in the Civil War is separate from whether or not conscription has positive effects when enacted.
You have stated several times (here "quite well"; here "8.5% reduction in force would have been quite significant" and later linking the outcome of the Civil War to conscription; and then here you state that "almost a tenth of all soldiers in the Union Army were draftees" without digging into the background which actually suggests (clearly states in some cases like Wisconsin) that the percentage who actually allowed themselves to be conscripted may have been lower...and I haven't seen any clear linkage indicating that those who were drafted served in any real capacity. And in some cases (California being one) there were no conscripts in their regiments.

You have provided no real citations to back up your Civil War claims. And your claims regarding its benefits to the overall war effort are likewise not supported aside from a random statistic. I think Ken has the right idea...