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Just as the officer corps was drawn from a narrow section of the upper and middle class, so the other ranks of the army continued to be drawn almost entirely from the most socially deprived elements of the unskilled working class. Some families had developed a military tradition but most recruits joined because they were unemployed. While the Cardwell–Childers reforms of 1868–81 were meant to introduce localized recruiting with ‘County Regiments’, this was clearly failing long before the First World War, especially in rural areas. Having joined the army, most men left it as quickly as possible and the various experiments with the length of enlistment did little to make the army more popular as a career or establish a well trained reserve.

This chapter looks closely at the importance of volunteerism in the British experience of ‘entering’ war and, in particular, questions whether enlistment to the army was indicative of enthusiasm for war. Without conscription, the tiny British Expeditionary Force had to be supplemented by volunteers. This raises a series of important questions—what was the chronology of recruitment? Why did men volunteer? What factors encouraged or discouraged them? How did the experience of volunteering affect women, parents, and children? What was the geography of recruitment? These questions can only be answered in the light of the themes raised in previous chapters—the national cause, the enemy, and the violence of the war as imagined and encountered.

This chapter presents Dick and Tally Simpsonsʼ wartime letters to their family in South Carolina dated from October 1861 to March 1862. These letters are about their recovery from measles and their transfer to the winter quarters of the Confederate Army near the Old Manassas. Since there was no attack by the enemy, the soldiers focused on keeping themselves warm at night and discussing what to do about the recently enacted legislation regarding re-enlistment.

This chapter presents Dick and Tally Simpsonsʼ wartime letters to their family in South Carolina dated from April to August 1862. These letters contained nothing specific except that Tally made the decision to re-enlist. Dick, who was suffering from chronic dysentery, was not able to re-enlist and decided to just let his time run out so that he could join a cavalry company being formed in the Pendleton area. However, Dick was given an honorable discharge on July 11, 1862 on account of bad health.

This chapter examines the reformation of the British Army and Home Forces during the period from 1940 to 1943. Even after the shock of the defeat in the Battle of Dunkirk, not much was done to alter the peacetime practice of allowing senior officers to interpret doctrine as they saw fit. A major change came in the summer of 1940 when the government abandoned the policy of balancing the needs of industry and the army and enlisted 324,000 men. During the winter of 1941–42 and in 1942–43, most of the army's efforts were devoted to converting army battalions into armoured and artillery units when equipment for them became available.

This chapter focuses on volunteers who fought for New Bedford in the Civil War while representing their home, state, and country. These men were known as “citizen-soldiers,” the predominantly white military units that represented the city and state in fighting for the Union. Community identification was reinforced by military enlistment patterns as men fought with others they had known as civilians. The chapter analyzes enlistment patterns, describes military units associated with New Bedford, investigates the backgrounds of the city's soldiers, and offers a focused look at Irish and Irish-American soldiers. One such soldier was William Logan Rodman, who was commissioned major of the Thirty-Eighth Massachusetts on August 19, 1862. The chapter concludes with an assessment of mortality patterns among New Bedford's soldiers and sailors who died during the war.

New Bedford's enlistees in the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Infantry Regiment would acquire fame greater than the city's white soldiers as they fought for the Union, for equal pay, and for an end to slavery. This chapter focuses on black soldiers from New Bedford. These men, like other African Americans throughout the country, fought a “different Civil War” than whites as they battled against racism and for equal pay for black soldiers. New Bedford's black and white communities allied in agitating for emancipatory war aims and the full inclusion of blacks as citizens. In exploring the military recruitment and experiences of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts, the chapter pays particular attention to the assault on Fort Wagner; the emergence of a local black war hero, William Carney; and the soldiers' quest for equal pay and equal rights. It also looks at black military enlistment and the New Bedford men of Company C of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts.

This section of the book provides the English translation of six chapters in Book VIII of Mongmin simsŏ on administration for district magistrates. The chapters discuss the following: enlistment for military service, training soldiers, repairing weapons of war, recommending martial arts, domestic disturbances, and defending the district against enemy attack.

This chapter discusses the historical experience before the year 1815. The early Christian Church refused to accept war as moral in any circumstances and until A.D. 170 Christians were forbidden to enlist. The most influential of the scholastics, St. Thomas Aquinas, was diffused with the teaching of St. Augustine on peace and war. The writers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and their reflection of changes in European society are illustrated. In addition, the probabilism and the development of the European state system and Balance of Power between 1500–1648 are explained. The positivism and the balance of power in Europe after Westphalia between 1648–1815 are also demonstrated.

This chapter considers the way in which military service acted as an agent of mobility and a means of extending global networks. In the long eighteenth century. The so-called military economy allowed Scots, who were over-represented in the British officer corps, to use existing regional and kinship connections to extend a form of ‘gentlemanly capitalism’. Service in the armies of the East India Company provided Scots from the emerging middle class a means for social mobility. The creation of these networks allowed Scottish localities to connect directly to the remotest areas of the British empire.

Rome’s harvesting of provincial manpower was an unprecedented achievement with extraordinary consequences. Her exploitation of the ‘human resource’ of provincial manpower was as vital to the Empire’s longevity as was her exploitation of other natural resources. This chapter is the first of four to examine this achievement and explores the process at its most personal — at the level of the individual. It begins by underscoring the fact that the experience of recruits to the auxilia varied considerably. To do this, it takes two case studies, the first, examines the case of a high-ranking ‘recruit’ to the Thracian auxilia in the first century; the second, the case of a draft of men enlisted in an infantry regiment in Egypt almost a century later. Legal requirements and ideal notions of how constituted a good recruit are then discussed in the context of formative Roman ideologies of power.

This chapter discusses the introduction of African American music to white audiences during the Civil War. Minstrelsy, one of the most popular genres of American music, was specifically designed to portray slave life. As the southern slave system collapsed, minstrel music changed. In the North, minstrel performers and songwriters supported emancipation and black enlistment.

This chapter focuses on stories and vignettes on the role of women in the war effort. Articles, illustrations, and stories emphasized the importance of women's domestic labor for the war effort, whether in preparing and packing provisions, sewing uniforms and havelocks, or knitting socks and mittens for soldiers. Other writings stressed the central importance of women in supporting men's enlistment, at times explicitly drawing parallels to the actions of Revolutionary mothers.

This chapter analyses recruiting differences within Ireland and between Britain and Ireland.In recent years, historians have focused on similarities, notably concerning the issue of agricultural recruitment, which was poor across the board. The greater Irish dependence upon agriculture explained much of the gulf between Ireland, Ulster and Britain. Another apparent similarity was the trajectory of enlistment over time, with a 1914 peak followed by substantial decline. Moreover, the geographic, class mould of pre-war recruiting was supposedly broken in both Britain and Ireland. All three arguments are reassessed. Was Ireland transformed, in a sudden, terrible war, into being at one with Britain’s commitment to the war effort, or would the burden of history ensure that her destiny was instead one of disunity?

Utilizing primarily cases from the War of 1812, this Chapter illustrates the power and limitations of the writ in restraining government. Positive examples include state habeas challenges to military enlistments in the period prior to Tarble’s Case and Ableman v. Booth, including one decided in the Massachusetts Supreme Court against General Thomas H. Cushing, and New York Chief Justice James Kent’s order that General Morgan Lewis release alleged spy Samuel Stacy. Negative ones include the defiance of the writ by General Andrew Jackson in the period surrounding the Battle of New Orleans. Events began with the expulsion of French counsel Louis de Tousard. When Louisiana legislator Louis Louailler protested, Jackson had him arrested. Lawyer Pierre L. Morel sought habeas corpus from Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Francois-Xavier Martin (denied) and prohibition and habeas corpus from federal Judge Dominick A. Hall (latter granted). Jackson arrested Hall. When United States Attorney John Dick obtained a state habeas writ Jackson arrested Dick and ordered the judge’s arrest. Jackson was fined by Hall for contempt but ultimately reimbursed by Congress. George Washington respected the writ but it was ever vulnerable to defiance, evasion or legislative suspension. Although valuable, it could not be relied on exclusively.

This chapter describes enlistment, for many African Americans, as a time fraught with worries about the families, friends, and dependents they were leaving behind to an uncertain fate. As black Union soldiers from Southern states, not only did they face higher risks if captured by Confederate troops, but also their families, either at home or in refugee camps, could find themselves in equally perilous situations. The Union's white soldiers from the North could expect that, in their absence, their families would receive support and assistance from their local community, their state government, and Federal agencies. If they were killed or seriously wounded in battle, some aid would be provided for those left behind. At the very least, family members would enjoy the respect of their society for the sacrifice their men were making. Moreover, many of these men and their families had financial resources that would help buffer dependents from privation while the war lasted.

This chapter describes the Irish enlistment in the Confederate Army. The Irish who wished to remain in the southern states were compelled to switch their allegiance to the new Confederate States of America. Many responded to calls to defend it, often forming their own ethnic units. About 20,000 Irishmen would serve in the Confederate armed forces.

This chapter details Kantorowicz' life in the army with the outbreak of World War I. Kantorowicz enlisted in August 14, 1914. His speed in enlisting was typical. Tens of thousands of young German men, including Jews, stormed the recruiting stations. On September 17, Kantorowicz was sent to join his regiment on the western front. He received successive promotions. He entered the army as a private (Soldat) and moved up by steps from private first class, to corporal, to sergeant (Vizewachtmeister), a noncommissioned officer rank he attained in October 1915. In June 1915 he received the Iron Cross, second class. On July 5, 1916, he joined a field artillery regiment that was in the midst of the battle of Verdun.