Thus far, the patriotic record was a glorious one. Almost one hundred
thousand three months' militia had shouldered muskets to redress the
fall of Fort Sumter; over half a million three years' volunteers
promptly enlisted to form the first national army under the laws of
Congress passed in August, 1861; nearly half a million more volunteers
came forward under the tender of the governors of free States and the
President's call of July, 1862, to repair the failure of McClellan's
Peninsula campaign. Several minor calls for shorter terms of enlistment,
aggregating more than forty thousand, are here omitted for brevity's
sake. Had the Western victories continued, had the Mississippi been
opened, had the Army of the Potomac been more fortunate, volunteering
would doubtless have continued at quite or nearly the same rate. But
with success delayed, with campaigns thwarted, with public sentiment
despondent, armies ceased to fill. An emergency call for three hundred
thousand nine months' men, issued on August 4, 1862, produced a total of
only eighty-six thousand eight hundred and sixty; and an attempt to
supply these in some of the States by a draft under State laws
demonstrated that mere local statutes and machinery for that form of
military recruitment were defective and totally inadequate.
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