LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-1865). Partly-printed document signed ("Abraham Lincoln") as President, Washington, 15 July 1863.

One page, 252 x 204mm. (mounted to a larger sheet, toned at the margins from prior matting).

A draft call signed two weeks after the battle of Gettysburg, the fall of Vicksburg and most importantly, in the immediate aftermath of the draft riots that gripped New York City. By the second year of the Civil War, enlistments had ebbed to a trickle. Volunteers, plentiful at the outset of the war, were increasingly difficult to source by 1863: "The men likely to enlist for patriotic reasons or adventure...were already in the army. War weariness and the grim realities of army life discouraged further volunteering" (McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 600). The Enrollment Act of March 1863 was intended to fill the army's depleted muster rolls: "Both Lincoln and his Secretary of War hoped that enforcing the draft would win back the loyalty of the soldiers already in the field--would demonstrate that the government intended to haul in reinforcements and stand behind its armies regardless of how unpopular the war became back home" (Oates, With Malice Toward None, p. 371).

The draft requisition reads: "I, Abraham Lincoln...do hereby assign Two Thousand Three Hundred and Seventy as the first proportional part of the quota of troops to be furnished by the 15th district of the state...under this, the first call made by me on the State of New York, under the act approved March 3, 1863, entitled 'An Act for Enrolling and Calling out the National Forces, and for other purposes.'"

The draft created an immediate backlash in the North. Draftees could avoid service by hiring a substitute to take their place or by paying a commutation fee of three hundred dollars. Since these options were beyond the financial means of a substantial portion of the population, the war was cynically labeled a "rich man's war and a poor man's fight." Violence erupted in some places when draft officers arrived, quotas in hand. The worst civil disorder took place in the City of New York. On 13 July, two days after the draft began, mobs rioted in the streets, destroying federal property, stoning the homes of Republican politicians, and beating or killing many innocent black citizens. When the four-day riot was ended (by troops rushed from the fields of Gettysburg), 105 were dead. The riots "sickened Lincoln to read about" (Oates, p. 387). Undeterred, Lincoln refused to let the violence interrupt his efforts to recruit sufficient troops to prosecute the war to its conclusion, signing the present draft call the day after the violence in New York City finally came to an end.

The draft, and the enlistments it stimulated, were instrumental in filling the ranks of the Union Army and made possible the overwhelming strength deployed by Grant and Sherman in the 1864-1865 campaigns which ultimately decimated the Confederacy (whose own conscription system had proven ineffectual).