Re-enlistment Patterns of Civil War Soldiers

The volunteers of 1861 hold a special place in the hearts of Civil War historians. Early Union volunteers are usually described as an eclectic citizen army created by a fusion of farmers, white-collar workers, and skilled workers. Conversely, men enlisted or conscripted after 1862 were the "dregs" of society. This consensus leads to a belief that the re-enlistment of these occupational groups was crucial to the Union's ultimate victory. One problem with crediting victory to the re-enlistment of certain occupational groups is the lack of information about the social characteristics of the soldiers who re-enlisted. ¹

This study examines descriptive data about Union soldiers from companies raised in western Pennsylvania to determine the effect of their re-enlistment on the social profile of the army. It presents the age, prewar residence, and prewar occupations of the soldiers at three points in time--at enlistment, or the spring and summer of 1861; during the re-enlistment campaign, or December 1863; and after re-enlistment, or the spring of 1864. Each point reveals identifiable patterns in the soldiers' persistence or exit from service. ²

The results indicate that although farmers, skilled workers, and white-collar workers were strongly represented in the volunteer class of 1861, and three years of service did not change the social profile of the army, these classes of soldiers were under-represented among the soldiers who re-enlisted in 1864. Therefore, re-enlistment appears to have created an over-representation of laborers and men with "no occupation" in the "veterans" of 1864. Correlating the results with the social history of western Pennsylvania and its mid-nineteenth-century trend of out-migration suggests that the re-enlistment decisions of Civil War soldiers were positively influenced by a rural origin. ³

ONE SOLDIER'S STORY In December 1863, Corporal William T. Shimp of Company A of the 46th Pennsylvania Volunteers claimed that he was ready to leave the Union army at the first legal opportunity. He had enlisted in October 1861 with the first three-year volunteers. Even after serving in the battles of Antietem, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, he had still maintained, "If we are not victorious in this war our hopes for free speech, free press, and constitutional rights are gone. Therefore I am willing to serve the government until rebellion is crushed, and the south subjugated and brought to terms, and every southern traitor made know his place." He changed his mind sometime during the next few months. ⁴

Shimp wrote a series of letters to his fiancée about the government's attempt, from November 1863 to January 1864, to persuade three-year volunteers to re-enlist for another term of service. He doubted that many men would re-enlist for the government's offer of a $402 bounty and month-long furlough but was astonished to discover that his brother, who served in the same company, was willing to do so. The letters make it clear that the government did not give up on Shimp, and those like him, easily. It resorted to the free flow of alcohol, propaganda promising that the war would be over soon, speeches from generals and other dignitaries, and the threat of being transferred to a strange regiment for the remainder of service. ⁵

In each of his letters, Shimp insisted that he had no intention of re-enlisting, until his resolve changed abruptly in the middle of an interrupted letter of January 1864. He began it with more tales about unsuccessful inducements but ended it by saying, "I have just returned from the Caps--tent--he sent for me to come down he wanted to see me we are sure to stay our full time out and he thinks this war can be ended by the time our term of enlistment--has expired I will reenlist--and come home and have a long talk to you and then I can satisfy...