Was it really pure patriotism that made young men eager to enlist? After getting some pension records on one of my relatives, I am starting to question that. The relative in question was John Frye Jr, who was 18 when he enlisted in 1861, and died in a hospital in Alexandria in early 1863 from disease. He was in the Sixth Maine Infantry, from far eastern Maine. After the war, his father, John Frye Sr, filed for a pension claiming that he was John Jr's dependent, and was himself an invalid. John Sr filed in 1870, claiming to be disabled and barely able to work. He had fathered 17 children by two different wives, including a 1 month old son when he was 58, so apparently some parts of him still functioned! John Jr had been in virtual slavery to his father before the war, being hired out for farming and lumbering with all his wages going to his father. I can imagine that for a young man looking forward to what must have seemed like an eternity of virtual slavery, the army must have seemed like a way out. Does anybody have any more stories about this?