Lincoln's Mercenaries ― Economic Motivation Among Union Soldiers During the Civil War

Lincoln’s Mercenaries considers the question of whether the burden of military service in the Union army was borne mainly by the poor during the American Civil War. From a survey of the entire 1860 United States Census, renowned Civil War historian William Marvel constructs a clearer picture of economic conditions for the war's earliest recruits.

Marvel finds disproportionate participation by men from chronically impoverished occupations, and documents the largely forgotten recession of 1860 and 1861. That fiscal downturn put hundreds of thousands of men out of work or blighted their businesses, leaving them susceptible to the modest emoluments of military pay and community support for soldiers’ families. Individual contemporary testimony, including direct or indirect personal admissions and personal observations, shows that the fervent recruiting of 1861 and 1862 was heavily driven not by patriotism, but rather economic distress, and confirms that the Union armies were composed mostly of poor men.

Notably, Marvel reveals that those who enlisted in during those two years—generally regarded as the most patriotic of Lincoln’s soldiers—appear to have been motivated by money as were those at least as much who enlisted in 1863 and 1864 for exorbitant bounties. A fascinating study of intersection of war and economic conditions, Lincoln’s Mercenaries shows how economic pressures played a role during the Civil war and continued to play one even after the conclusion of the war when relative poverty among Union recruits helped fuel the demand for veterans’ pensions.