Union Losses From Expiring Enlistments

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

Is there any count of how many Union soldiers had their 2 or 3 year enlistment expire in 1863-1864 and chose not to reenlist?

Has anyone done a study on how this loss of veterans negatively impacted the Union army, especially the Army of the Potomac?

 

[leftyhunter]

Is there any count of how many Union soldiers had their 2 or 3 year enlistment expire in 1863-1864 and chose not to reenlist?

Has anyone done a study on how this loss of veterans negatively impacted the Union army, especially the Army of the Potomac?

I know it was enough of a problem for offering increased bounties to encourage veterans to reenlist as well as professional bounty hunters who would enlist in one regiment desert and join another regiment.
Richard Current noted that some states sent recruiter's to Southern states to recruit local men to offset their state enlistment quotas.
I have a thread " Did the Union recruit overseas"? and indeed the Union Army recruited men in the UK.
Also by late in the war more USCT regiments were assigned to combat duty.
So absolutely the AoP certainly had challenges to maintain manpower. Fortunately for the AoP the AnV also had major issues maintaining their manpower levels.
Leftyhunter

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

This strictly anecdotal, but my great-great-grandfather Waggoner (14th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Army of the Cumberland) enlisted for three years... his enlistment was due to expire sometime after Chickamauga, but they evidently didn't release anyone until after Chattanooga, expiration or no. After that, it seems that those reenlisting would get some sort of pass to go home for a time, then return and have the regiment labeled "veteran"; those that did not reenlist (such as my great-great-grandpa) simply went home.

 

[jackt62]

Don't know the answer to that question, but I have read that expiring terms of enlistments also effected 9 month regiments earlier in the war.