Did Conscription help or hurt the Confederacy?

leftyhunter

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
May 27, 2011
Location
los angeles ca
Has we know the CSA was so short of manpower that by April 16 1862 it had to resort to concription to fill its dwindling ranks. The Union would have a draft which meant not all eligible men would have to enlist one year later.
I will argue that conscription hurt the CSA more then helped of course feel free to argue differently. Gen. Kirby Smith CSA estimated that by the end of April 1862 has many has 7k young men from East Tn fled to Ky where they then joined the Union Army to avoid the CSA conscription. Very few men from East Tn joined the Union Army prior to the Conscription act. See p.122 Licolnites and Rebels A divided town in America Robert McKenzie Oxford Univ Press.
Leftyhunter
 
:rofl::rofl::rofl:
Once again you crack me the h e double hockey sticks up.
But all Unionist Guerillias and Home Made Yankee units were pure as the driven snow right? :bounce::bounce::bounce:

that schtick NEVER gets old.:running:
I never said they were. But I have to give them credit for helping to end slavery. That's more then you can say for the white knights in shining armor that you claim the Confederate guerrillas in Missouri were.
Leftyhunter
 
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I never said they were. But I have to give them credit for helping to end slavery. That's more then you can say for the white knights in shining armor that you claim the Confederate guerrillas in Missouri were.
Leftyhunter

Never alluded the were "White Knights" but hey if you choose to believe that line you rock on with your bad self!:wavespin:
 
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The only real problem I see with conscription is do you really want to be told you going into the army to fight. Conscription or the draft was never popular in the old days, when basic patriotism stumbled for various reasons in it's drive to victory. It was a lot like impressment into the Navy or shanghaiing. That really inspires loyalty and patriotism to the cause and maybe eventually desertion. Many people just don't like to be told what you are going to do, war or not.
 
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I can't speak for @Gladys Hodge Sherrer but defections and guerrillas among Southern men was a far more long term serious threat then a few riots lasting maybe a week at most.
Leftyhunter

Do you mean the Confederate guerrillas you claimed in another thread that held down a third of the Union army for a while? As for the greater problem, any problem would be less for a country whose enlistments in their army roughly equaled the total free male population (all ages, races, health, etc.) of the country it was fighting?

http://www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html
http://www.civil-war.net/pages/troops_furnished_losses.html
 
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At least the most infamous draft riot in New York City was more complicated than simply resistance to conscription. It combined elements of racism by a poorer working class who resented fighting for what they perceived was simply the freedom of enslaved blacks.
Resistance to conscription in Boston could get you shot including your women and children.
 
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I never heard of women folk in the North being tortured to reveal the whereabouts of Union deserters. I have posted many times about women being tortured by Confederate Militia to obtain the location of Southern mossbacks.
Leftyhunter

Yes, you have posted it many times, but there has been a dearth of sources such as book, movies, manuscripts, etc. where such information was obtained.
 
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What percentage of southerners were conscripted?

I don't have percentages for all Confederate States but for North Carolina about 19,000 conscripts out of the approximately 125,000 troops furnished by the state.

Hugh T. Lefler and Albert R. Newsome, North Carolina: History of a Southern State, p.430.
 
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Do you mean the Confederate guerrillas you claimed in another thread that held down a third of the Union army for a while? As for the greater problem, any problem would be less for a country whose enlistments in their army roughly equaled the total free male population (all ages, races, health, etc.) of the country it was fighting?

http://www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html
http://www.civil-war.net/pages/troops_furnished_losses.html
You deliberately are misquoting me. I have stated in past thread's one third of the Union Army regiments were employed at least part of the time in counterinsurgency. Most of the one third of all Union regiments switched back and forth from conventional to counterinsurgency. I detail that in my thread " Compare and Contrast Union vs Confederate counter guerrilla operations".
Leftyhunter
 
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Resistance to conscription in Boston could get you shot including your women and children.
Not true. There was a riot and the troops fired into the crowd. That's just how riot control was done back then. Tear Gas would not be available until the 1929s. I have read no account of Union authorities beating and torturing women unlike the Confederate Militia.
Leftyhunter
 
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If anyone needs sources that Confederate Militia tortured women to find the whereabouts Confederate deserter's or Conscription dodgers let me know and U will gladly send a link.
Leftyhunter
 
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I've stated this before, but conscription is not a sign of a lack of society's commitment to a war(any war), but a sign of how important it considers the war. The Union used the draft, the US used the draft in WW1 and WW2, and the Cold War. With the exception of the Revolution(mostly), the wars the US has fought with volunteer soldiers are less crucial, then the ones they decided to impose the draft or conscription.
 
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I've stated this before, but conscription is not a sign of a lack of society's commitment to a war(any war), but a sign of how important it considers the war. The Union used the draft, the US used the draft in WW1 and WW2, and the Cold War. With the exception of the Revolution(mostly), the wars the US has fought with volunteer soldiers are less crucial, then the ones they decided to impose the draft or conscription.
sorry disagree
the difference is how important the wars were, the rebellion against the Brits wasn't a US war it formed the US - great difference

all these unprovoked US "wars" against neighbours weren't important, when it comes to importance any goverment will draft, btw from a European pov there is no difference between draft & conscription but the efficency of "collecting" the manpower
 
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sorry disagree
the difference is how important the wars were, the rebellion against the Brits wasn't a US war it formed the US - great difference

all these unprovoked US "wars" against neighbours weren't important, when it comes to importance any goverment will draft, btw from a European pov there is no difference between draft & conscription but the efficency of "collecting" the manpower
I think you are agreeing with me.
 
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