Conscription Acts

Conscription is the act of selecting people to serve in the military. It is also known as the draft. Prior to the American Civil War (1861–65), states determined when and how to use conscription, such as during the American Revolution (1775–83) and the War of 1812 (1812–15). During the Civil War, the congresses of both the Union and the Confederate States of America imposed national drafts, causing much controversy.

The Civil War began in April 1861, when the Confederate army attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina . The Union had an army of just sixteen thousand men at the time. President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; served 1861–65) called for seventy-five thousand men to volunteer for militia service for three months, a show of force that Lincoln expected would end the rebellion. So many men answered Lincoln's call that the Union army turned away volunteers.

Confederate president Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) raised one hundred thousand volunteers at the start of the war. One year later, the number of new volunteers was dwindling, and the Confederate congress passed a Conscription Act in April 1862. The act compelled military service by men ages eighteen to thirty-five, and it was later expanded to cover ages seventeen to fifty.

Conscription was controversial among members of the Confederacy. The law contained an exception for one white man on every plantation who owned at least twenty slaves. A conscript also could hire a substitute to serve for him by paying the government $300. These provisions offended working-class whites who did not own plantations or who had small farms, no slaves, and little money. Conscription by the Confederacy also violated the Southern concept of states’ rights, which was the cause for which the Confederacy was fighting. Many Southerners believed states, not a federal government, had sole power to decide when and how to impose a military draft.

Volunteers and conscripts allowed the Confederacy to succeed in the Civil War well into 1863. The prospect of defeat led the Union congress to enact its own Conscription Act that year. It compelled service by men ages twenty to forty-five. There were certain medical, hardship, and high official exceptions. As in the South, a Northern conscript could pay $300 or find a substitute to avoid service. Many Northerners criticized the exceptions, saying they favored the rich over the middle-class and poor.

African Americans offered to volunteer in the North at the outbreak of the Civil War. The army refused to accept them until after Lincoln imposed the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863. By then, Union defeats allowed the need for more soldiers to trump the racism that had kept African Americans out of service. Racism, however, prevented them from serving as officers, and black regiments received inferior wages, equipment, and assignments.

New York Draft Riots

The conscription acts led to many riots across the country. One of the worst was in New York City in July 1863. On July 4, New York governor Horatio Seymour (1810–1886) gave a speech criticizing President Lincoln for violating state liberty during the war. From July 13 to 15, angry whites rioted in the city, attacking a draft office and African Americans and their property, including the Colored Orphans Asylum. About a hundred people died in the riots.

In the last months of the Confederacy, the Confederate congress voted to enlist black soldiers in its army too. The war ended, however, before that process began.