It's 05/04/1864. And you're a soldier in the arnouth Potomac marching towards the Rabaudan River and into the wilderness. A 70 mile track of thickets and dense forest that only a year before in the location of the same Army's defeat at the Battle of Chanserville. Before you cross the floating bridge over the rapidan river that will be later worn up so you cannot use it again to retreat. You may ask yourself, how did I hit here? Welcome to War Yankee Intelligence.
So how do you joined a fight to preserve the United States of America during the civil war? Particularly in 18 64, Well, the union army was made up of actually multiple organizations. He had permanent regular army, this is the United States army approved by US Congress. And then you had temporary units. These are dedicated volunteers from each state or territory. Basic unit of the Civil War armies that were formed locally and would either join or be part of the permanent regular military.
So by 18 64, Grant's United States Army pulled recruits from 2 places, volunteers, men who listen voluntarily, or conscripts, men who were drafted into the service. This was the first draft ever to happen in US history. Now, the terms of enlistment, the initial call up in 18 61, was just for 3 months. So it was the, hey, everyone, rise up, protect the union,
fight the Sesh, defeat the confederacy, they only expected the war to actually take 3 months long. But after July 18 61, the battle of Bull Run pretty much disabuse leaders of the idea of a short war. They realized that things were going to be a lot harder than they expected because they underestimated the scope of the war quickly finding eager volunteers became more difficult even for both armies. So in late summer 18 61, Congress approved the enlistment of 500000
men for 3 years. Would be soldiers that would be paid. Join the army, be paid 3 year enlistment. This would change the new recruit enlistment for rather than 3 months to 3 years, or until the war ended depending on which side you were fighting on. Understandably, the United States was slow to create a draft. In 18 62, rather than instituted draft, president Lincoln requested 300000
more men and assigned each state a quota. And so states can meet this quota in any manner they saw fit. Leaving the way in which the state's recruited volunteers, quotes, up to the states. So the federal government requesting troops made the states responsible for bringing those troops in. So most states offer cash incentives.
These are known as bounties to gain rich recruits. So if you get paid a bounty, you go serve for 3 years, you come back, you get some money, And if you're out of work or you have a low paying job, maybe being in the military, not a bad idea. So depending on where 1 enlisted, a combination of local state and federal boundaries could exceed a thousand dollars.
That's not bad, but this had problems. And the policy had a the side effect that would encourage what's called bounty jumpers. These are men who would list long enough to collect the bounty and then desert. And they go find a different unit, and begin the process anew. So the 18 62 policy also did not recruit enough troops because of this problem. You have pretty much people creating a cottage industry on bounty jumping. Think maybe you'd pay them after the fact, but That's not what happened. So the union would turn to conscription in order to fill their ranks in 18 63.
Not a very popular move. Because the draft act of 18 63, also known as the Civil War, Military Draft Act, was the first instance of compulsory service in the federal military forces. It required that all male citizens as well as aliens who had declared their intentions of becoming citizens between the ages of 2045
were at risk of being drafted. Had a catch though, no married men could be drafted until all the unmarried men had been taken. So it's set up under the union army an elaborate machine for enrolling and drafting men for conscription. So because of the quota system assigned to each state, any lack of volunteers require governors to meet that lack with conscription. It wasn't not a very popular thing. Because the problem with conscripts is they don't want to fight. That's why they didn't volunteer.
So if you get drafted, not a very good soldier, at least considered not to be a very good soldier. Didn't mean that they didn't turn out to be good soldiers. They usually draft as soldiers have motivation, and morale problems. Then came the Enrollment Act of 18 64. This is where you could pay money and reduce the amount of time you had to serve the transcript, or you could furnish a substitute This is where rich and well off people could pay someone else to serve in their son's place.
Additionally, it would impose a a sanction that if you ran away desertion or you evaded the draft, you would lose your American citizenship. This would create a case where what war critics would call a rich man's war. But a poor man's fight using the unfair policy of conscription as their key argument. They would cite that there was an inherent contradiction in forcing men to fight for their liberty.
When you took that away and forced them to fight. And even on top of that allowed rich people to pay poor people to go fight. Or reduce their time to have to fight where a poor man didn't. So that's getting into the army. What happens to get out of the army? Well, after 3 years, you had those volunteers that had enlisted for 3 years in 18 61, they would come up for reenlistment in 18 64. And because many of these volunteers, mostly men who had been unemployed laborers,
actually enjoyed being in the military and enjoyed getting a paycheck, So they would go on to reenlist for an additional 3 years. And a lot of these men in 18 64
saw the writing on the wall could see the confederacy was starting to fall and believe that they were gonna be part of the solution and b, they wanted to be on the winning team. They wanted to be there when it happened. So they would reenlist for 3 more years. And it was kind of higher at the beginning 18 64, but as the overlaying campaign drags on all the way to the C. J. Petersburg, These are realistmas, they would fall very quickly, especially after some of the gruesome battles of the battle of the wilderness spots on your courthouse, and all the way to Cold Harbor.
Plus, it also put a very interesting problem within Union armies is, right before a major offensive, large swathes of your army would just disappear? They'd be like 3 years, 3 years are up, see you later, and march off the battlefield. So those were the complexities of being either a volunteer or a conscript in the union army. So if you were a union soldier within the army, the Potomac marching towards a rapidown ripper, and moving into Northern Virginia into the wilderness on 05/04/1864.
You were probably a 25 year old unmarried white man. Slightly educated farmer from the northern state, possibly a volunteer from Pennsylvania or New Jersey. As a veteran who is now serving your final year of your 3 year enlistment,
most likely a corporal or sergeant in charge of the tune of 20 plus men getting ready to enter the toughest year of fighting yet. Sadly, there's a 1 in 4 chance that you will not live to see the Independence Day celebration of 18 64. And if you do, there is a 1 and 3 chance that only Part of you will see it on your way back home in the back of an ambulance wagon. If you manage to escape those odds, you will have the honor and privilege of re listing just before or after some of the most gruesome fighting of the entire Civil War. In fact, the many men that did re enlist during the summer of 18 64
is an amazing testament to their courage and dedication to seeing the Union United. God bless those men that made that ultimate sacrifice so that we could all live free in the United States of America.
This has been a bonus episode of War Yankee over men. My American Civil War History podcast created by me, Kyleyn Bondo, and produced by Jakafi. Hope you can join me as I continue to follow the civil war history hiding in my own backyard. Follow the Overland campaign's marks petersburg at war games dot com.