I'd have to disagree for the most part. Don't think the dynamics of the rich man's war, poor man's fight part was equally relevant on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line as regards those held to compulsory military service.
The laws and modes were different, and had different effects given some other distinctions between the organization of the two opposing armies.
The Confederate conscriptions were described by veterans as having undermined discipline in two ways. First was that volunteer army could reorganize under the conscription act, to continue in service in their existing units, with provision that they might elect new officers to replace the officers of the first year. This was largely done, and as was noted by several commenters, resulted generally in the ouster of disciplinarian officers, for more popular ones. W.W. Blackford, Col. Mosby, and others made notice of this, as did Colonel Robert Tansill in his post-mortem of the Confederacy:
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Private Sam Watkins of the 1st Tennessee Volunteers noted of this effect...
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The conscription/reorganization elections in 1862 were described as generally benefitting the more popular men in each company, promising less red-tape, regulation etc. rather than those with demonstrated capabilities of either leadership, or paperwork ability. One North Carolina agent postwar, tasked with corresponding with veterans to determine the numbers of North Carolina war dead, was informed many of the company officers never bothered about paperwork, and left such things to their first sergeants, many of whom were ignorant of military regulations.
"The saddest thought connected with this failure of the records to perpetuate their names, is the fact that a large per centage of these unaccredited heroes are asleep on the battle fields, and hard by the great hospitals that witnessed their deaths. The dead and those discharged for disabling wounds were, in a great measure, soon entirely dropped from the rolls by the Orderly Sergeants."
So apparently a large part of the volunteer officers on hand by mid-1862 on, were not elected in many cases in order to enforce full military discipline. When their units were later in the war filled with even less motivated conscripts, many were apparently at some loss of how to proceed where a strict discipline was necessary. Some of the Confederate volunteer officers resigned when their commands were filled up with unmotivated conscripts. Among them, 1st Lieutenant Walter S. Maloney, Jr. of Company K, 7th Florida Volunteers, who wanted a transfer to a South Carolina artillery unit in late 1864.
Secondly, when conscripts were sent to weak volunteer units as replacements, according to many Confederate veterans, the volunteer soldiers of the ranks wanted to have little or nothing to do with them.
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50 leaves, [1] leaf of plates : 26 cm
archive.org
The conscripts were miserable, having been rounded up, and treated almost like prisoners in many cases. But even the veterans were put out by the conscription acts for larger reasons. Sam Watkins of the 1st Tennessee Volunteers, explained the Confederate conscription made many sore, as it fully exempted large slave owners..."It gave us the blues; we wanted twenty negroes. Negro property suddenly became very valuable, and there was raised a howl of
"Rich man's War, poor man's fight." The glory of the war, the glory of the South, the glory and pride of our volunteers had no charms for the conscript."
General Lee in November, 1863 begged some "wise and effective" mode for a levy en masse replace the conscription; or one that didn't exempt one class from service, at other's expense, and otherwise negatively effect the army:
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Besides the vicious class antagonisms in wake of the Confederate conscription, it was politically offensive too. Sam Watkins, William Watson of the 3rd Louisiana, William C. Oates and others observed that while they initially thought the conscription might drag the politically correct pre-war secessionist partisans into the service, they were disappointed to find it had no such effect.
But no significant alteration in the conscription mode was forthcoming, other than extending the age ranges, and converting many exemptions from service, to detailed/detached service on the home front, etc.
In contrast the USA during the war, even under the national draft law of 1863-65, called the Enrolment act, kept the original volunteer officers elected among the first organization of Volunteers in 1861, and pressed upon them the necessity of abiding the Army Regulations, and learning and abiding the modes of the regular Army. Unsuitable officers were allowed to resign, or were cashiered where necessary, but the majority remained officers until the expiration of enlistment of their units, etc. From 1864, a Union Army officer noted that the Volunteer officers (originally elected) were as inclined as any to be very liberal as commanders, and to sneer at the machine soldier discipline of the regulars, including paperwork, etc., as unnecessary; but that they soon found out that they had to conform to the Army Regulations and system of accountability, and could in time appreciate it:
"The [US Army] system is wonderfully complete for its own ends, and the more one studies it the less one sneers. Many a form which at first seems to the volunteer officer merely cumbrous and trivial he learns to prize at last as almost essential to good discipline; he seldom attempts a short cut without finding it the longest way, and rarely enters on that heroic measure of cutting red-tape without finding at last that he has entangled his own fingers in the process."
The USA Enrolment Act of 1863, for the "National draft," had no effect upon the serving volunteer soldiers, whose enlistment contracts remained unmodified. And actual volunteer recruiting continued to the end of the war. It was increasingly incentivized by local, State and federal bounties, etc. If enough men in a district volunteered to meet their quota, there might be no draft.
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The Union Army Volunteers also frequently complained about the recruits of 1863-65 sent under the national draft law as "conscripts" viz. the drafted men and "substitutes" etc. But according to the Army's observations the troublemakers were mostly the
substitutes rather than the actual draftees who had obeyed the law.
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Because of the emergency of the war, the National enrolment included all men aged 20 to 45, without any time to remove unsuitable men
before the drafts (as in the later "selective service" mode). Consequently Army surgeons rejected about 1/3rd of draftees as unfit and sent home. Consequently, the draftees were, as a body, a physically fit group on the whole, in contrast the large numbers of disable-bodied and "ineffective" men collected by the Confederate conscription.
About 170,000 all told entered service under the provisions of the US Enrolment Act of 1863, but the majority, about 120,000, were substitutes. About 75,000 drafted men provided substitutes, and another 40,000 substitutes were accepted for enrolled men to exempt them from a draft. Another 86,000 drafted men paid the $300 commutation in lieu of service. Under the Union act, drafted men could also be released in order to voluntarily enlist as a volunteer (and collect bounties, etc.) The total number unclear.
In fact only about 50,000 drafted men actually rendered active service as such out of 2.6 million Union Army enlistments (about 1/52 of US soldiers). But they had set a positive pattern for the future.
In the next large scale levy, in 1917, the USA mass mobilized the drafted "National Army" to serve alongside regulars and national guard in France, etc. through the "selective service" system, which removed allowances for providing substitutes, such as had been so troublesome during 1863-65.
In contrast, by the close of the war, the Confederacy had apparently actually conscripted probably not less than 300,000 men (Moore, Conscription and Conflict in the Confederacy, 357), and, as noted, all Confederate troops were affected by the conscription besides. All while exempting as many as 90,000 able-bodied citizens of military age, besides the military age population among the slaves, and foreigners, while filling the army with boys and old men.
Finally, the Union draft did not exempt anyone for wealth particularly. All free men 20 to 45 were subject to the enrolment, including the wealthy, the poor, the white and the black, the native or foreigner. Any enrollee could provide a substitute if they wanted to be exempt from a draft, or if drafted provide one in lieu of personally serving (the substitutes were generally paid money to serve in lieu of their principal, but a substitution could be made for
any reason); or pay the commutation fee in lieu of active service, or in some cases declare themselves conscientious objectors to military service. Also, the fact an enrollee or drafted man provided a substitute or paid the commutation, did not exempt them from
future drafts, or from being
called forth potentially by their Governors, or the President, for active service as Militia.
While the resistance to the Confederate draft was largely "class" related according to General Lee and others, the resistance to the Union draft was principally considered political. For example from New York...
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The open resistance to the US draft was largely suppressed by the close of the war. But resistance to the Confederate conscription increased to its close, rendering it a dead-letter.
Ultimately, Col. Oates, later Governor of Alabama, observed that the Confederate conscription, if necessary to extend the duration of the war, worked in large measure to ensure it couldn't be won. That the Union draft law employed the States in determining who was suitable for active service with the Army, etc., sent forward able-bodied men of military age for the most part, and empowered the Militia of the States too, where they had been otherwise unable for some reason to enroll their whole Militia force prior...
By the close of 1864 Jefferson Davis begged of the Confederate Congress to repeal the class exemptions/details from military service provided for in the conscription, and instead institute universal militia laws (more akin the US enrolment act)...
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But the situation was not improved. In February, 1865, the Confederate Congress passed an act to "Provide more effectually for the prevention and punishment of absenteeism and desertion from the armies." But it was described as a dead-letter.
Jefferson Davis was yet commuting large numbers of desertion death sentences. To one claimant for mercy, he noted on his commutation, "I would have gone home under such circumstances." To the end he hoped for a better mode. For example, here in March, 1865 Davis complains that a proposed Congressional provision for disable-bodied Army conscripts to be exempted from ALL military service by surgeon's examinations, would have been harmful (for example removing them perhaps from light duty, or Militia service, etc.), and would not agree to it...
Both armies almost certainly had their lowest rates of desertion in 1861. From there they diverged. Slowly at first perhaps.
According to Daniel Harvey Hill, the two Volunteer armies opposing each other in 1861 were rather evenly matched on that score. Many West Point Generals, and even more elected volunteer officers, etc. But over time the Union Army gained the ascendancy by increasing conformity with customary military modes, not just outwardly, but discipline wise...
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But by 1865 the federals had the edge, even with imperfections. The federal forces improved over the course of the war. The Confederates declined.
Apparently the US Army recorded its worst present for duty showings after the Battle of Fredericksburg, and during the subsequent "mud march" campaign. General Halleck stated on February 18, 1863 that fully one-third of US troops were absent from their commands, with or without leave. The low morale and unauthorized absenteeism was abated some by the replacement of General Burnside with General Hooker, but even by Chancellorsville, something like one-tenth of the Army was yet absent without leave said Mr. Bigelow in his study of that battle.
US "Desertions" all told during the war were recorded at 268,530. However, the Adjutant general of the Army explained that many missing men were recorded as "deserted" at war's end for paperwork reasons; many of whom were probably captured, and a large and unknown number died in Confederate custody, etc. without record. Consequently, they calculated 201,397 actual desertions, of which 76,526 were subsequently arrested and returned to the Army. This left 124,871 certain deserter losses from 1861-1865 out of 2.6 million enlistments.
Jefferson Davis admitted in late 1864 that 2/3rds of the Confederate Army were absent from their units, which ratio was hardly improved before the end of the war several months later. The Confederate Army's records which survived the war were found to be defective and incomplete. However from a review the US Adjutant General's office found reference to 104,428 desertions during 1861-63, of which an unknown number were apprehended. Few records for the late war period when by most accounts the problem rose significantly to the point of the army's practical disintegration.
Bringing the