If a man's name was drawn in this lottery, one of several things would happen to him next — the least likely of which was induction into the army. Of the men chosen in the four drafts, more than one-fifth (161,000 of 776,000) "failed to report" — fleeing instead to the West, to Canada, or to the woods. Of those who did report to the provost marshal's office, one-eighth were sent home because of already filled quotas. Three-fifths of the remaining 522,000 were exempted for physical or mental disability or because they convinced the inducting officer that they were the sole means of support for a widow, an orphan sibling, a motherless child, or an indigent parent. Unlike the Confederate Congress, Union lawmakers allowed no occupational exemptions. But a draftee who passed the physical exam and could not claim any dependent relatives still had two options: he could hire a substitute, which exempted him from this and any future draft; or he could pay a commutation of $300, which exempted him from this draft but not necessarily the next one. Of the 207,000 men who were drafted, 87,000 paid the commutation fee and 74,000 furnished substitutes, leaving only 46,000 who went personally into the army.
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