Enlistment Durations & Their Effect On The War

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

My understanding is that enlistment duration varied a great deal during the Civil War. To my knowledge (please correct any misstatements on my part):

For the Confederates, initial enlistments were for 1 year. In 1862, the CSA implemented conscription and required all soldiers to reenlisted for the duration of the war. New enlistments were also for the duration of the war. I'm not familiar with State Militias or similar units.

For the Union, Lincoln's initial call for 75K to suppress the rebellion were for only 90 days service. When this quickly proved insufficient, most enlistments changed to 3 years. There were also some 1 year and 2 year regiments raised in 1861 and 1862 (especially Pennsylvania?). By 1863 (around the same time the USA implemented conscription as well?) enlistments were finally changed to the duration of the war, but while there were attempts to persuade expiring enlistments to reenlist (leave, bonus pay, retaining regiment designations) there was no requirement to reenlist (unlike in the Confederate Army).

1. How were regular army enlistments (non-volunteers non-officers) handled during this time period? Most 20th century enlistments I have encountered (other than World War II, which were for the duration plus 6 months) were for fixed duration - usually 3 or 4 years. If someone enlisted in the US Army in 1860 how long were they typically enlisted for? If a prewar enlistment expired during the Civil War did the soldier get the option of discharge, or did the regular army require him to serve out the rest of the war? How were regular army enlistments during the war handled in terms of duration?

Expiring enlistments in the Army of the Potomac were a major problem during the latter half the war. Hooker held back a significant portion of his army (I've seen numbers in the 10K-20K range) because of enlistments that were going to expire and a belief that those men would not be reliable in combat. Meade continued to bleed expiring enlistments for the rest of the year which was one of the things hindering his ability to conduct operations in the fall of 1863. The Overland Campaign had a significant number of new regiments, in addition to the veteran but inexperienced reinforcements from stripping the DC defenses.

2. Was there any serious consideration by Lincoln, etc. for duration-of-the-war enlistments in 1861 or 1862? Was it thought unnecessary or just something that would hurt recruitment?

3. The Confederates had other advantages over the Union at the lower levels (dispersion of regular army veterans amongst more units, placing new recruits in veteran units instead of creating new regiments), but how significant was the expiring enlistments issue to the war overall? Do you think this would have meaningfully reduced voluntary recruitment levels? If so, would this have brought about a draft in the North sooner? How do you think these factors would have affected the outcome of events in the Eastern Theater in 1863-1864?

4. Did expiring enlistments significantly impact operations elsewhere in the Civil War, or was this predominately an Eastern Theater issue? If so, why?

 

[johan_steele]

1. US Regular Army enlistments were for 5 years at the time and Regulars were not eligible for State Bounties or bonus. But promotion was generally thought to be faster in the Regulars and there are many cases of Regular Army Corporals & Sgt's receiving brevet commisions in State or USCT Regiments. The Regular Army enlarged during the ACW but not really that dramaticly. Discipline was considerably tougher in the Regulars than the typical volunteer regiments but the Regulars got first pick of arms & equipment and their pay was more consistant as well as a fairly steady flow of replacements and new recruits.

2. No, at no time did Lincoln seriously consider "for the duration" enlistments.

3. Enlistment expiration had a notable effect in the Spring of 1864, in all theatres as men were due to be mustered out. many Regiments ceased to exist with those who re-enlisted rolled into other Regiments from the same State. It required a rather impressive furlough system that took place in the winter of 1863 on into the spring of 64. The effect was a loss of good numbers of veterans, but allowing those men to return home to their families instead of forcing them to remain in the ranks was viewed as the govt honoring its obligation. In some way the loss of those experianced men hurt morale but I belive forcing men to re-enlist for the duration would have been more injurous.

4. In the west the veterans of 1864/65 were a hard lot with the Army of the Tennessee being, arguably, the best Army of the US. Loss of veterans to expiring enlistments hit the Army of the Cumberland more significantly than the AoT but the AoC made up for that with a higher number of newly formed Regiments.

As a note when comparing the US Draft system with the CS Conscription system the Draft was a random lottery; there was no guarantee a man's "number would come up." Wheras the CS Conscription system was that of the press gang under the control of officers of varying quality and integrity. Some were invalided veterans doing their best while others were officers who had managed to fanagle a way to get away from the sharp end or planters who managed to get an appointment as a conscription officer to avoid service on the front.

Several years ago a PHD student, I believe from Alabama, did a survey of known CS conscription officers. I admit to being sketchy on the specifics and am recalling it from memory so take this with a grain of salt. His analysis was fascinating in the varied quality of those men. One example I recall was a Texas officer paired with a Sgt who had been seriously wounded at Chickamauga (losing an arm IIRC) and while the Sgt was competant the officer was a spoiled little rich kid who wouldn't leave the comfort of the wagon box. Despite this the duo managed to do a superb job of gathering men for the Army. The problem would arise when many of those men melted away. Sometime in late 64 they were sent to the frontier posts to gather men but would arrive to find the posts all but abandoned as the men knew they were coming and would conveniently leave on patrol. At the end of the war they ran into a party of Commanches and lost their hair. Another example was a planter who went around conscripting farmers whose land he would then try to get away from the wives. But there were other extremes as well; a wealthy businessman, I believe a drygoods store owner, guaranteed any man who he conscripted he would extend a line of credit to the wife for the duration of their enlistment. If that man died or was crippled he would forgive that debt. Another similar was a banker who would do something similar with loans. A third one would go around to the jails and empty them into the army. The CS conscription system was varied and of inconsistant effect.

There was also active resistance to conscription throughout the CS and more than a few conscription officers found themselves shot at by southern men who had no interest in being part of the CS Army. I really don't recall enough about the research other than it was quite interesting. But my interest is more with US forces and there my familiarity stands.