BQ78 said:
As I said it was a generality but the same held true in the north, the Boys of 61 were generally younger and single, the married men had jobs and families they were not as anxious to go. Remember it was going to be a short war. As the war drug on they had to go to fill the ranks and of course both sides had to resort to the draft after the bloody campaigns of 62. It wasn't the Irish that made the difference at the end, it was black soldiers. In April 65 there were as many black soldiers in the Federal army as there were Confederate soldiers in the entire Confederacy.
If you look at the British in WWI you see a very similar trend. The youngest, best and brightest volunteered at the outset of the war. Fast forward a couple of years and a couple hundred thousand dead and wounded, the Brits began to rely on conscripts to fill the ranks. Problem being, the most reliable and enthusiastic about the war were already chewed up and the incoming conscripts, men who were not that willing to volunteer and fight, became the larger portion of the ranks. The fear of "political reliability" of the troops increased.
When the US entered the war it initially relied on volunteers but quickly slowed that process and implemented the draft as a method to prevent this issue from arising if the war was protracted. Understanding a need to have a balance between the enthusiastic and the hesitant should not be lost when a prolonged war looms.
