Whats up my friends! Joseph Glatthaar in his book General Lee's Army, claims that half of all ANV soldiers enlisted in 1861, and almost 3/4 enlisted before Lee took command after Johnston's wounding. Is this estimate accurate? Especially with the conscription acts of April 1862 and February 1864.
The Confederate Army seemed to think so. While the Conscription acts declared hundreds of thousands of men liable for army service, a large proportion of them never reported for service where they could help it anyway. For example, it was calculated that the February, 1864 Conscription Act would produce about 200,000 men. This fell far, far short of such an expectation, as had the previous modes of conscription.
In February, 1865, shortly before it was disbanded as having proven a decided failure in adding numbers to the Confederate Armies, the Army's "Bureau of Conscription" reported the results of the act as follows so far as their records could demonstrate...
A. Number of conscripts enrolled and assigned to the army from camps of instruction since the act of Congress, April 16, 1862:
Virginia .... 13,933
North Carolina 21,348
South Carolina 9,120
Georgia ... 8,993
Alabama, exclusive of the operations of General Pillow. 14,875
Mississippi , exclusive of the operations of General Pillow. 8,061
Florida, suspended and under General Cobb until January, 1863. 362
East Louisiana, from September report, commenced in August, 1864. 81
East Tennessee. 5,220
Total Conscripts to the army....... 81,993
B. Approximate estimate of men who have joined the army since April, 1862, without passing through camps of instruction.
Virginia ... 15,000
North Carolina 8,000
South Carolina 6,800
Georgia .. 26,400
Alabama. 10,060
Mississippi 3,032
Florida ... 2,000
East Louisiana. 500
East Tennessee. 500
Total minimum estimate of enlistments from April, 1862 ...... 72,292."
Recall that the Conscription acts of April, 1862 had also practically conscripted the existing Volunteer troops of the Confederacy, who were not discharged at the close of their one year terms, but they were allowed to continue in their existing organizations, and elect their own officers, etc. upon reenlistment and reorganization... otherwise they would have been generally conscripted had they accepted a discharge and been parceled out as replacements... Sam Watkins of the 1st Tennessee Volunteers, stated the conscription acts were a hard pill for the volunteers. Col. Marshall of Lee's staff in his writings admitted the same.
It seems to have been a very general opinion in the South that, whatever one thought of the Confederacy and its government, the "conscription acts" were no good. Col. Oates of the 15th Alabama observed post-war that more troops were employed in hunting conscripts and harassing the public ("buttermilk rangers") than there were conscripts sent to the armies as replacements.
I have seen it said by members of General Lee's staff that the ANV fought with the volunteers of 1861-62, and when they were exhausted, the war was over.
By September, 1864 President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy admitted publicly that 2/3rds of the troops were absent without leave, and called for them to return, etc. Most didn't bother. In March, 1865 the Confederacy passed an act to recruit negro troops to provide replacements, but this was a non-starter as the war was shortly over.
Bringing the