Recruiting volunteers , on the
Potomac River in 1861 Enthusiastic young men clamored to join the Union army in 1861. They came with family support for reasons of patriotism and excitement. Washington decided to keep the small regular army intact; it had only 16,000 men and was needed to guard the frontier. Its officers could, however, join the temporary new volunteer army that was formed, with expectations that their experience would lead to rapid promotions. The problem with volunteering, however, was its serious lack of planning, leadership, and organization at the highest levels. Washington called on the states for troops, and every free state governor set about raising and equipping regiments, and sent the bills to the War Department. The men could elect the junior officers, while the governor appointed the senior officers, and Lincoln appointed the generals. Typically, politicians used their local organizations to raise troops and were in line (if healthy enough) to become colonel. The problem was that the War Department, under the disorganized leadership of
Simon Cameron, also authorized local and private groups to raise regiments. The result was widespread confusion and delay.
Pennsylvania, for example, had acute problems. When Washington called for 10 more regiments, enough men volunteered to form 30. However, they were scattered among 70 different new units, none of them a complete regiment. Not until Washington approved gubernatorial control of all new units was the problem resolved. Allan Nevins is particularly scathing of this in his analysis: "A President more exact, systematic and vigilant than Lincoln, a Secretary more alert and clearheaded than Cameron, would have prevented these difficulties." in May 1863 By the end of 1861, 700,000 soldiers were drilling in Union camps. The first wave in spring was called up for only 90 days, then the soldiers went home or reenlisted. Later waves enlisted for three years. The new recruits spent their time drilling in company and regiment formations. The combat in the first year, though strategically important, involved relatively small forces and few casualties. Sickness was a much more serious cause of hospitalization or death. In the first few months, men wore low quality uniforms made of "shoddy" material, but by fall, sturdy wool uniforms—in blue—were standard. The nation's factories were converted to produce the rifles, cannons, wagons, tents, telegraph sets, and the myriad of other special items the army needed. While business had been slow or depressed in spring 1861, because of war fears and Confederate boycotts, by fall business was hiring again, offering young men jobs that were an alternative way to help win the war. Nonpartisanship was the rule in the first year, but by summer 1862, many Democrats had stopped supporting the war effort, and volunteering fell off sharply in their strongholds. The calls for more and more soldiers continued, so states and localities responded by offering cash bonuses. By 1863, a draft law was in effect, but few men actually were drafted and served, since the law was designed to get them to volunteer or hire a substitute. Others hid away or left the country. With the
Emancipation Proclamation taking effect in January 1863, localities could meet their draft quota by sponsoring regiments of ex-slaves organized in the Confederacy. at Fort Lincoln, 1865 Michigan was especially eager to send thousands of volunteers. A study of the cities of Grand Rapids and Niles shows an overwhelming surge of nationalism in 1861, whipping up enthusiasm for the war in all segments of society, and all political, religious, ethnic, and occupational groups. However, by 1862 the casualties were mounting, and the war was increasingly focused on freeing the slaves in addition to preserving the Union.
Copperhead Democrats called the war a failure, and it became an increasingly partisan Republican effort. Michigan voters remained evenly split between the parties in the presidential election of 1864.
Motivations of soldiers Michael Perman (2010) says historians are of two minds on why millions of men seemed so eager to fight, suffer, and die over four years:
The paperwork war On the whole, the national, state, and local governments handled the avalanche of paperwork effectively. Skills developed in insurance and financial companies formed the basis of systematic forms, copies, summaries, and filing systems used to make sense of masses of human data. The leader in this effort,
John Shaw Billings, later developed a system of mechanically storing, sorting, and counting numerical information using
punch cards. Nevertheless, old-fashioned methodology had to be recognized and overcome. An illustrative case study came in New Hampshire, where the critical post of
state adjutant general was held in 1861–64 by elderly politician
Anthony C. Colby (1792–1873) and his son Daniel E. Colby (1816–1891). They were patriotic, but were overwhelmed with the complexity of their duties. The state lost track of men who enlisted after 1861; it had no personnel records or information on volunteers, substitutes, or draftees, and there was no inventory of weaponry and supplies.
Nathaniel Head (1828–1883) took over in 1864, obtained an adequate budget and office staff, and reconstructed the missing paperwork. As result, widows, orphans, and disabled veterans received the postwar payments they had earned.
Medical conditions in 1862 More soldiers died of disease than from battle injuries, and even larger numbers were temporarily incapacitated by wounds, disease, and accidents. The Union responded by building army hospitals in every state. The hygiene of the camps was poor, especially at the beginning of the war when men who had seldom been far from home were brought together for training with thousands of strangers. First came epidemics of the childhood diseases of
chicken pox,
mumps,
whooping cough, and especially,
measles. Operations in the Confederacy meant a dangerous and new disease environment, bringing
diarrhea,
dysentery,
typhoid fever, and
malaria. There were no antibiotics, so the surgeons prescribed coffee, whiskey, and quinine. Harsh weather, bad water, inadequate shelter in winter quarters, poor policing of camps, and dirty camp hospitals took their toll. This was a common scenario in wars from time immemorial, and conditions faced by the Confederate army were even worse. What was different in the Union was the emergence of skilled, well-funded medical organizers who took proactive action, especially in the much enlarged United States Army Medical Department, and the
United States Sanitary Commission, a new private agency. Numerous other new agencies also targeted the medical and morale needs of soldiers, including the
United States Christian Commission, as well as smaller private agencies, such as the Women's Central Association of Relief for Sick and Wounded in the Army (WCAR), founded in 1861 by
Henry Whitney Bellows, a Unitarian minister, and the social reformer
Dorothea Dix. Systematic funding appeals raised public consciousness as well as millions of dollars. Many thousands of volunteers worked in the hospitals and rest homes, most famously poet
Walt Whitman.
Frederick Law Olmsted, a famous landscape architect, was the highly efficient executive director of the Sanitary Commission. States could use their own tax money to support their troops, as Ohio did. Under the energetic leadership of Governor
David Tod, a
War Democrat who won office on a coalition "Union Party" ticket with Republicans, Ohio acted vigorously. Following the unexpected carnage at the
battle of Shiloh in April 1862, Ohio sent three steamboats to the scene as floating hospitals equipped with doctors, nurses, and medical supplies. The state fleet expanded to 11 hospital ships, and the state set up 12 local offices in main transportation nodes, to help Ohio soldiers moving back and forth. The Christian Commission comprised 6,000 volunteers who aided chaplains in many ways. For example, its agents distributed Bibles, delivered sermons, helped with sending letters home, taught men to read and write, and set up camp libraries. The Army learned many lessons and modernized its procedures, and medical science—especially surgery—made many advances. In the long run, the wartime experiences of the numerous Union commissions modernized public welfare, and set the stage for large—scale community philanthropy in America based on fund raising campaigns and private donations. Additionally, women gained new public roles. For example,
Mary Livermore (1820–1905), the manager of the Chicago branch of the US Sanitary Commission, used her newfound organizational skills to mobilize support for
women's suffrage after the war. She argued that women needed more education and job opportunities to help them fulfill their role of serving others. The Sanitary Commission collected enormous amounts of statistical data, and opened up the problems of storing information for fast access and mechanically searching for data patterns. The pioneer was
John Shaw Billings (1838–1913). A senior surgeon in the war, Billings built two of the world's most important libraries,
Library of the Surgeon General's Office (now the
National Library of Medicine) and the
New York Public Library; he also figured out how to mechanically analyze data by turning it into numbers and punching onto the computer punch card, later developed by his student
Herman Hollerith. Hollerith's company became
International Business Machines (IBM) in 1911.
Prisoners of war Both sides operated prison camps; they handled about 400,000 captives, but many other prisoners were quickly released and never sent to camps. The Record and Pension Office in 1901 counted 211,000 United States soldiers who were captured. In 1861–63 most were immediately paroled; after the parole exchange system broke down in 1863, about 195,000 went to Confederate prison camps. Some tried to escape but few succeeded. By contrast 464,000 Confederates were captured (many in the final days) and 215,000 imprisoned. Over 30,000 Union and nearly 26,000 Confederate prisoners died in captivity. Just over 12% of the captives in United States prisons died, compared to 15.5% for Confederate prisons.
Draft riots in 1863 Discontent with the 1863
draft law led to riots in several cities and in rural areas as well. By far the most important were the
New York City draft riots of July 13 to July 16, 1863. Irish Catholic and other workers fought police, militia and regular army units until the Army used artillery to sweep the streets. Initially focused on the draft, the protests quickly expanded into violent attacks on blacks in New York City, with many killed on the streets. Small-scale riots broke out in ethnic German and Irish districts, and in areas along the Ohio River with many Copperheads.
Holmes County, Ohio was an isolated parochial area dominated by
Pennsylvania Dutch and some recent German immigrants. It was a Democratic stronghold and few men dared speak out in favor of conscription. Local politicians denounced Lincoln and Congress as despotic, seeing the draft law as a violation of their local autonomy. In June 1863, small-scale disturbances broke out; they ended when the Army sent in armed units. ==Economy==