Conscript

The Confederacy passed the first American national conscription act in April 1862, requiring service from white men aged 18 to 35. Congress followed with the Union's first conscription act in 1863. Both sides allowed exemptions and substitutes, and the Union also allowed commutation.

Veterans often looked down on conscripts as less reliable than volunteers, and towns pleaded for volunteers to avoid the draft. Later drafts in 1917 and 1940 ran through the Selective Service System, whose records are draft registration cards.