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To: Bubba Ho-Tep
So when you said "the United States army did not force men to stay in uniform after their initial enlistments were up", you were accurate? men joined when they thought the war was over "union". lincoln issues the emancipation, and everyone balks (except maybe your ansestors who knew all along what the war was REALLY about). since his "new" cause wasn't the one anyone wants to fight for, he has to use conscription to force people to kill each other so he can keep his precious "union" and tax base intact. nyc riots ensue. there's only one "good" man in the whole war, and that man's name was abraham lincoln.
451 posted on 04/15/2011 12:51:41 PM PDT by phi11yguy19
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To: phi11yguy19
So when you said "the United States army did not force men to stay in uniform after their initial enlistments were up", you were accurate?

Yes, I was. The men who enlisted in 1861 were not forced to remain in the army after their 3 years were up. Well more than half did choose to reenlist, even after three hard years of fighting, a figure comparable to current US Army reenlistment rates . A draft was established in 1863, but less then ten percent of US Army soldiers were draftees (or subsitutes). Men who had served as enlistees and been released at the end of their three years were not subject to the draft. Some did become paid substitutes for other draftees.

But since you're attributing enlistments, reenlistments and draft rates with support for war aims and policies what do you have to say about the confederacy's refusal to let to its men go home after their enlistments were up, unilaterally extending them indefinitely, the fact that the south went to a draft earlier, that conscripts made up a far larger portion of the southern army than the US Army, and that desertion rates were much higher?

454 posted on 04/15/2011 1:27:06 PM PDT by Bubba Ho-Tep ("More weight!"--Giles Corey)
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