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It drafted every able-bodied man
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twenty years of age to forty-five years of age.
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It had--its exemptions were more limited.
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You could escape
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if you could find a substitute and pay $300;
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hence the charge, not inaccurate, that in the North,
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this "People's war," As Lincoln called it,
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this war to save democracy,
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became a rich man's war and a poor man's fight.
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Generous bounties were paid if you enlisted,
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and in the end only about six percent
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of all the Union forces in the Civil War were draftees.