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No one forced my ancestors to fight.

Well you would know better than me, but I do know they forced plenty of Irish off the boats into the Union army to go fight. It is one of the means by which they had the constant supply of bodies to keep grinding away at the South.

And why not? Why not draft foreigners who have no choice, and who wouldn't be missed? (Not missed by any of the powers that be, that is.)

I still consider it to be one of the most dastardly and evil things that they did. You don't force people who are fleeing starvation to go fight in a war they had no personal interest in just because you have the power to do so.

Unfortunately, it was my ancestors - Irish immigrants - who not only were draft-dodgers but Copperheads as well. I often wondered if one of them was involved in the evil draft riots in NYC. That said, I love the history of the South and think that both sides made huge sacrifices in the cause of freedom and unity. I collect rebel flags because I’m afraid this crazed country will ban them. I send them to my friends in England who clamor for them.

I still consider it to be one of the most dastardly and evil things that they did.

Why not let them speak for themselves?

“This is my country as much as the man that was born on the soil and so it is to every man who comes to this country and becomes a citizen…I have as much interest in the maintenance of the government and laws and integrity of the nation as any other man… This war, with all its evils, with all its errors and mismanagement is a war in which the people of all nations have a vital interest. This is the first test of a modern free government in the act of sustaining itself against internal enemies and matured rebellion. All men who love free government and equal laws are watching the crisis to see if a republic can sustain itself in such a case. If it fail then the hope of millions fail and the designs and wishes of all tyrants will succeed…There is yet something in this land worth fighting for.” - "Irish Green and Union Blue; Civil War Letters of Peter Welsh"

You don't force people who are fleeing starvation to go fight in a war they had no personal interest in just because you have the power to do so.

And when the Confederacy began conscripting free blacks and slaves at the end of the war, what personal interest did they have in the war?