Year of descision for young men of the South

[OpnDownfall]

For whatever reason's, draftees are 'generally' less committed to 'fighting' in a war than volunteers. It does not mean they do not make good soldiers or will not stay to the end, merely that they have other interests that are 'at least' as important as the war in which their participation has to be coerced.
The Civil War was like almost all modern national wars, with mass armies. The morale and fighting abilities of those armies were directly affected by the morale of those on the 'home front'.
In the south, we often read the letters of the individual soldiers, but less often do we read the kind of letters they were receiving from their friends and families.
Even at the very beginning of the war when confdence in the ultimate victory was strongest, the effect of fathers, sons and husbands leaving family plots to fight in what amounted (to them) to a foreign war, was severe and 'rapidly' got worse as the war continued.

[samgrant]

"I was forsed out in the confederate Armey by the Conscript ofiser but i left and went to the Federal Armey as soon as i cold git acros The lines."

- James Carroll Cooner (13th Alabama Cavalry CSA, then, as soon as he cold, 1st Alabama Cavalry USV)