Evading the draft?

[JerryD]

Ran across some statistics about the US draft that kind of startled me. Some nuggets:
1. Number of names drawn in first draft in July, 1863: 292,221
2. Of those, the number that actually served: 9,881!!

Apparently between exemptions, substitutes, payment in lieu on service, and desertion, the vast majority of draftees were able to avoid service.

Over the three years of the draft it generated 162,535 soldiers. This includes 116,188 substitutes!! And apparently many of these have to be counted more than once since bounty jumping was so common so we don't know the number of actual soldiers generated from that 116,188. Only 46,347 who were drafted actually served. 86,724 were able to pay to avoid service.

The authors did state that the effectiveness of the draft is that it generated enlistments. They claim 94% of US soldiers were volunteers and draftees were a very small minority and that people preferred to enter the war as a volunteer rather than a draftee, who generally were looked down on.

Sadly, the authors did not provide a cite for these numbers so I dont know where they come from. But do these numbers surprise anyone else? I was shocked at the number of substitutes hired, and how easy it was to avoid the draft, apparently. I understand, though, that the US draft had many more exemptions than the CSA draft did, especially as the war wore on.

 

[Mississippian1861]

Some late war New York regiments were offering $1000 in bounty money to join up. A small fortune to a young man getting his start in the world. Naturally the veterans who joined up early in the war did not care much for these men.

 

[John Hartwell]

The names drawn were those who were required to report for examination. Many of those failed the physical, or were found to be otherwise exempt or unfit for service. Others paid commutation or hired substitutes.

The draft was successful enough that in some states there was never a second round.

Results of the First Federal Draft, July 1863 | Civil War Potpourri

In October 1863, Provost-Marshall General James B.Fry sent to Secretary Stanton the following interesting analysis of the first round of Federal conscription:

civilwartalk.com

 

[John Hartwell]

In Massachusetts, the impact of the draft was slight. The state provided 159,165 men (26,000 of them to the Navy) plus about 7,000 in units from other states. In the 1863 drafts, just over 30,000 names were drawn, of whom 22,400 were held to be exempt; 2,300 provided substitutes, and 3,600 paid the $300 commutation. Only 2,720 were assigned to regiments at the front, and another 224 served provost guard duty within the state.

And all of those men were drafted before 1 January 1864. Soon after the 1863 drafts were effected, a change in the act allowed communities that had exceeded their quotas in previous calls to receive credit for them in future calls -- if that ruling had been in effect from the start, there would have been no draft in Massachusetts at all. "The state ... filled all subsequent calls without resort to a draft." By the end of the war the state had exceeded its quota by 13,083. (figures from Schouler, Mass. in the War, 1868).

So, adding those who served with the number of substitutes, the draft supplied just under 4,600 of over 159,000 men from Massachusetts.

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

Many of those failed the physical, or were found to be otherwise exempt or unfit for service.

The Union actually had rather strict limitations on who was acceptable as a recruit. As noted on another thread, baldness could mean being rejected. Confederates on the other hand, especially as the war went on, had a difficult time getting any sort of exemption.

Alopecia, whether due to any of the diseases mentioned in this class or to hereditary tendency, if extensive, or if the loss of hair be total, preventing a man wearing a military cap and exposing him to accidents from atmospheric vicissitudes or exposure to the sun's rays, is a reason for exemption, rejection, or discharge ; but the temporary alopecia produced by an attack of acute disease is not a disqualifying infirmity. Page 85

And the subject of teeth did, in fact, come up as well-

Hare-lip, — simple, compound, or complicated ; loss of the whole or considerable part of either lip; loss of the whole or part of superior or inferior maxilla; incurable deformities of either jaw-bone, interfering with mastication, speech, or the tearing of the cartridge; anchylosis of the jaws; loss of the incisor and canine teeth of superior and inferior maxilla. These are the injuries and deformities of the mouth which, according to the Aide-Memoire, constitute grounds of exemption from military service, for rejection, or for discharge. Page 55
Source:

A manual of instructions for enlisting and discharging soldiers : with special reference to the medical examination of recruits, and the detection of disqualifying and feigned diseases : Bartholow, Roberts, 1831-1904 : Free Download, Borrow, and Stre

Adopted by the Surgeon-General for issue to medical officers of the Army.

archive.org

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

I don't know about NH. My great-grandfather put his name in for the town of Francestown. He was older, in his late 30s, but he was never called up and I've never understood why. I've only been able to get the answer that the town filled their quota of men to the state. I don't know how the draft in NH figured in to the total. A lot of boys volunteered from here and the 5th NH took some of the highest rates of casualties for any regiment of the war.

In reading a lot of diaries, the bonuses for signing up and the pay, if the soldier lived, made a HUGE difference for the folks back home. Many, many letters have the soldier telling the mother or wife to "buy just what you need, don't hold back because I'm getting paid in xxx weeks." If you could survive, the pay could turn the farm around and/or turn lives around.

 

[wausaubob]

A man could to go to British North America, or to California or Oregon, or to a western territory, or simply move to a state that had met its quota.