Voluntary enlistment

“ But whatever may be the powers of Congress on this subject, it is certain that there is no legislation now in force, providing for the "army," except by means of voluntary enlistment. The whole army of the United States is, at present, an army of volunteers; and all per [357] sons who are volunteers are of the army, and not of the militia. To call them volunteers does not take them out of the category of the army, or general military force of the United States. ”

“ There was another consideration, unmentionable by the recruiting sergeants and war orators, which must nevertheless have helped them powerfully in procuring soldiers by voluntary enlistment. The happy home of the idealist may become common under millennial conditions. ”

“ Enough has, perhaps, been said of the unpopularity of military service, and of the obvious causes thereof, to make it credible that, had the system of conscription never been resorted to in Europe, and the principle of voluntary enlistment remained intact and universal, the difficulty of procuring the human fighting material in sufficient quantities would in course of time have rendered warfare impossible. ”

“ Most emphatically the Conscription Law operated mainly as a stimulus to voluntary enlistment. The volunteer received, as the conscript did not, a bounty from the Government; States, counties, and smaller localities, when once a quota was assigned to them, vied with one another in filling their quota with volunteers, and for that purpose added to the Government bounty. It goes without saying that in a new country, with its scattered country population and its disorganised great new towns, there were plenty of abuses. ”

“ The record of National Guard enlistments has not yet been completely compiled, [302] but the act authorizing a temporary increase in the military establishment provided that any deficiency remaining in either the Regular Army or the National Guard should be made up by selective conscription. The introduction of this new method of enlistment so far affected the whole question of selection for military service that any deductions, either favorable or unfavorable, from the number of voluntary enlistments, would be unwarranted. ”

“ The difficulties of maintaining the army were unabated. 'All my accounts,' he wrote in April 1782, 'respecting the recruiting service are unfavourable; indeed, not a single recruit has arrived to my knowledge from any State except Rhode Island, in consequence of the requisitions of Congress in December last.' He strongly urged the impossibility of recruiting the army by voluntary enlistment, and recommended that, in addition to the compulsory enrolment of Americans, German prisoners should be taken into the army. ”

“ It gives the people a larger representation in the business of conducting a draft, tends to secure justice to all, and thus relieves the popular prejudice and feeling of opposition to the law itself.
But why should not every board of enrolment throughout the country also be a board of enlistment? The time is fast approaching when the bulk of our present army will return home. It is important that as many of these men be reënlisted as can be, with any new troops that may offer themselves. The Government should avail itself of every opportunity for making voluntary enlistments. ”

“ The French nation, however, deeming it unsafe to rest on any such frail contingency as voluntary enlistment, has wisely, as well as justly, decreed that her maritime districts and commercial marine shall be subject to the same obligation to serve their country as the other classes of the community ”

“ With the majority of the rank and file, the army is, in all likelihood, not a profession of choice. Enlistment is now scarcely ever voluntary. When men are required for a new regiment or to fill companies thinned by death or desertion, a sergeant is despatched with his guard to recruit among the Indians and peons of the neighborhood. ”

“ No reliable evidence has been produced to show that the voluntary system of enlistment is not adequate to meet all the empire's requirements. We believe that all the men necessary can and will be obtained through a voluntary system properly organized, and we heartily support and will give every aid to the Government in its present efforts to secure the men necessary to prosecute the war to a successful issue. ”

“ To carry this resolve into effect, the Brigadier Generals through the State were directed immediately on receipt of the resolve, to issue orders for calling the companies together, and raising the men required from each town, by voluntary enlistments, or by drafting them, on failure of a full number being otherwise raised. ”

“ While it has nothing to do with training, there is another provision that should be in the enlistment law; that is, that every man who enlists for five years, and is in service when war breaks out, shall be liable for service for at least one year thereafter no matter when his term expires. At the outbreak of a great war is no time to discharge trained men. ”

“ The enlistment law should be radically changed to get the best results for training, general efficiency and preparedness for war.
Enlistment law
All men should enlist for 5 years. At the end of one year’s honest and faithful service, except when serving beyond the limits of the U. S., the man should, on his application, be granted a furlough for the remaining four years; if war breaks out, or becomes so imminent as to call for mobilization, [Pg 170] these furloughs to cease and the men to rejoin. ”

“ I must sincerely hope that the old and constitutional mode of calling out the good and true men of the nation to serve in the militia regiments will never be abandoned, and I yet trust to seeing it extended, as I have proposed, to the Guards and regular army. Surely I have shewn plainly enough the evils of our present recruiting system to dissipate the notion of extending it to the militia. I [Pg 101] have long entertained a dislike to the plan of enlistment, unless every possible inquiry were made into the characters of the men who offered themselves as recruits ”

“ However, yesterday Captain Mitchell relieved Captain Grinton in command of the post. The reserve companies fell in line to hear the orders of the War Department, concerning veteran volunteers. They produced quite an excitement among us. The three years' enlistment of a large portion of the army is nearly expired, and the Government, in its anxiety to avail itself of the experience of the veteran troops to the end of the conflict, is now offering extra inducements, in the way of furloughs and bounties, to secure the reënlistment of these men to the end of the war. ”

“ These Volunteer companies will, as a general rule, take the place in the line battalion of its company, serving as mounted infantry. The Volunteer battalions from which a company is accepted will form and maintain a waiting company in reserve at home. The selection of men from the Volunteer battalions for service with the line battalion in the field, will devolve on the commanding officers of Volunteer battalions. The terms of enlistment for officers and men will be for one year, or for not less than the period of the war. ”

“ So on the 3rd of May President Lincoln issued a call for United States volunteers to serve three years, unless sooner discharged. At once thousands of loyal men sprang to arms—so large a number, in fact, that many regiments raised were refused until later.
The methods by which these regiments were raised were various. In 1861 a common way was for some one who had been in the regular army, or perhaps who had been prominent in the militia, to take the initiative and circulate an enlistment paper for signatures. ”

“ For while the demands which modern war makes have increased in every direction, the term of service has been shortened in order to make enlistment in very great numbers possible. Thus the full consummation of military training cannot be attained unless recruits enter the army well equipped physically and mentally, and bringing with them patriotic sentiments worthy of the honourable profession of arms. ”

“ They afford the cheering hope that our resources, limited as they were at the beginning of the contest, will, during its progress, become developed to such an extent as fully to meet our future wants.
The policy of enlistment for short terms, against which I have steadily contended from the commencement of the war, has, in my judgment, contributed, in no immaterial degree, to the recent reverses which we have suffered, and even now renders it difficult to furnish you an accurate statement of the army. ”

“ Each state governor organized the units with which he answered the President's call, usually by requesting that National Guard units volunteer. Guardsmen, however, were under no legal obligation to volunteer, and a significant number refused either because of fears over how their unit would be treated by the Regular Army or from concern over hardships that volunteering would impose on their families. Large numbers of Guardsmen who did volunteer failed their physical examination. To fill units to full strength, states recruited enlisted men direct from civil life. ”

“ With the suspension of first-time enlistments, the qualitative imbalance was sure to grow, for now the highly qualified civilian would be passed over while the less qualified soldier was permitted to reenlist. ”

“ Shortly after Congress passed the militia law, it authorized the use of volunteers, a third category of soldiers, for national defense. Volunteers served freely, like soldiers in the Regular Army, but they were not part of any standing or reserve force. Generally, the states raised the volunteers that Congress considered necessary on a regimental basis, and the federal government used the volunteer regiments to form divisions and brigades. ”

“ This is another responsibility resting on officers—that for the men under them. With young men we have a great influence on their characters and future careers. We make men better fit for life’s work or turn them back worse than we found them.
To the credit of the army it can be said that in most cases an enlistment served therein is a benefit to the majority who so serve. The men are physically and mentally better for a short service and I believe morally. ”

“ We want, first of all, men, and we shall endeavour to secure that men desiring to serve together shall, wherever possible, be allotted to the same regiment or corps. [Cheers.] The raising of battalions by counties and municipalities with this object will be in every way encouraged. But we want not less urgently a larger supply of ex-non-commissioned officers, and the pick of the men with whom in past days they have served, and therefore whom in most cases we shall be asking to give up regular employment and to return to the work of the State which they alone are competent to do. ”

“ Where the enlistment contract provides for service in the event of 'a mobilization or emergency,' I would assume that a wide variety of events might encompass each term. Indeed the very summoning of reserves to active duty might itself be sufficient to constitute the condition subsequent. ”

“ A few days ago I addressed a letter to the Secretary of War, suggesting that the department encourage voluntary organizations of non-conscripts for local defense, and that they be armed with every superfluous musket that the government may possess. If this be done, the army will not be so much embarrassed by vehement calls to protect the people from raids everywhere; and in the event of serious disaster, the people would still make resistance. But an unarmed people would have no alternative but submission. ”

“ Initially, the Government purports to uphold the conscription both of combatants for armed service and conscientious objectors for 'civilian work' under the same source of power-Congress' war power and power to raise armies. Moreover, the loss of liberty for a conscientious objector drafted into civilian work is not appreciably less than that suffered by the combatant soldier. ”

“ Yet in spite of this treatment,—which is virtually [Pg 19] a breach of contract by the Government, since the recruit is led to suppose on his enlistment that he is to be a soldier and not a hod-carrier,—in spite of his rarely being taught his profession, or shown how to become skilled in arms or horsemanship, the American soldier is subordinate, quick to obey, ready in expedients, uncomplaining, capable of sustaining great fatigue, brave and trustworthy in action. ”

“ To the argument that higher enlistment standards were a matter of military economy during a period of partial mobilizations, those concerned about civil rights responded that, since marginal manpower was a necessary ingredient of full mobilization, the services should learn to deal in peacetime with what would be a wartime problem. ”

“ When they volunteered the government had only called for ninety days' enlistments. Men were called now for three years or the war. They felt that this change of period released them from the obligation of re-volunteering. When I was appointed colonel, the 21st regiment was still in the State service. About the time they were to be mustered into the United States service, such of them as would go, two members of Congress from the State, McClernand and Logan, appeared at the capital and I was introduced to them. ”

“ But being anxious at this important crisis to organize an armed force with a view of meeting future exigencies, and to demonstrate by practical experience the degree of facility with which the militia may be trained for service, I have to request you to adopt immediate measures for forming and completing, from among such men as voluntarily offer to serve, two companies, not to exceed one captain, two subalterns, two sergeants, one drummer, and thirty-five rank and file each, in the regiment under your command. ”

“ I hope we shall have men for them. From five to ten thousand volunteers are daily offered—but not two thousand are accepted. Some have no arms; and others propose to serve only for six or twelve months. Infantry will not fight with hunting rifles or shot-guns; and the department will not accept mounted men, on account of the expense of transportation, etc. ”