First, although the draft law nominally permitted few exemptions, over 50 percent of Northern draftees exploited the exemption categories that did exist and thereby escaped service.
Second, it was possible for a man to pay $300 (a year's wages for a worker) and avoid being drafted in any given callup.
Third, a man could also gain permanent exemption by hiring a substitute to serve in his place.
Both the $300 commutation fee and the hiring of substitutes fueled bitter complaints that it was “a rich man's war and a poor man's fight.”
The biggest problem the CSA had was that they couldn't keep the men from fighting, from boys to elderly men; so many were wounded and voluntarily returned to battle that they had a high mortality rate from previous wounds.
91% of Confederate soldiers were native born and only 9% were foreign-born, Irish being the largest group.
Sounds like the tragically oppressed Southern soldiers were far more loyal and more determined and more dedicated to me. Just a guess, by looking at the numbers.
"I take a just pride as an American citizen, a descendant on both sides of my parentage of English stock, who came to this country about 1640, that the Southern army, composed almost entirely of Americans, were able, under the ablest American chieftains, to defeat so often the overwhelming hosts of the North, which were composed largely of foreigners to our soil; in fact, the majority were mercenaries whom large bounties induced to enlist, while the stay-at-home patriots, whose money bought them, body and boots, 'to go off and get killed, instead of their own precious selves, said let the war go on.'"