Context: Why do we need a draft ?
President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers in April 1861. Lincoln gave a second call for an additional 42,000 men in May 1861. In July 1861, the U.S. Congress sanctioned Lincoln's acts and authorized 500,000 additional volunteers. As the war dragged on and Battle casualties increased a formal draft become necessary
Conscription Act of 1863 The first instance of compulsory service in the federal military services. All male citizens, as well as aliens who had declared their intention of becoming citizens, between 20 and 45 were at risk of being drafted. No married man could be drafted until all the unmarried had been taken. Two methods of evading the draft were available. A man could hire a substitute who would serve in his place, or he could simply pay $300 to get out of the obligation. Of the more than 750,000 drafted in 1863 and 1864, only roughly 46,000 ever saw the battlefield.
Consequences: The New York City draft riots (July 13–16, 1863) were violent disturbances widely regarded as the culmination of working-class discontent with new laws passed by Congress that year to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots remain the largest civil and racially-charged insurrection in American history, aside from the Civil War itself