By paying a substitute - a bad system. Who were these substitutes? Why were they not already in uniform? Obviously because they had deserted.

It would depend on which civil war you are referring to.

Paying a substitute.

That was one of the provisions of the Union draft, and it was a very bad law. There was naturally a lot of grumbling in the ranks about well-off young men who could afford to slide out of doing their service. But the substitutes were mostly no use anyway. Why hadn't they responded to the call-up in the first place? Obviously a lot of deserters, draft-dodgers or bounty-jumpers.

The Confederates did not allow substitutes, and that is one reason that their morale was higher.

*The civil war *The War between the States