James Russell Soley, Professor U. S. Navy, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 7.1, The blockade and the cruisers
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

[10] the force; and later, a great expansion took place. In July, 1863, there were 34,000 men in the service. But at all times there was a difficulty in obtaining trained seamen. Large bounties were offered by State and local authorities for enlistment in the army, and transfers between the two services were not authorized by law. When the draft was established, mariners were subjected to it like other citizens, without any regard to the service which they would prefer, or for which they might be specially fitted. In assigning the quotas to each locality, no allowance was made to maritime communities for the seamen they had furnished; so that they were forced, in self-defence, to send their seafaring population into the army. In 1864, a law was passed correcting these evils; but meantime the navy suffered, and vessels were occasionally unable to go to sea for want of men. As the necessities of the service grew more pressing, the number of men in the navy increased. To obtain them, it was necessary to hold out extraordinary inducements; and in the last months, bounties as high as one thousand dollars were offered and paid for a single seaman. When the war ended, there were 51,500 men in the service.

Nothing shows more forcibly the dependence of the navy upon the merchant marine for recruiting its ranks in time of war than the enormous additions both of officers and seamen that took place between 1861 and 1865. It is from the merchant marine that such reinforcements must always be chiefly drawn. To fill the cadres of the army a well-trained and organized militia stands always ready, at least in many of the States; but no steps have ever been taken toward establishing a sea-militia, even since its importance has been demonstrated by the war. A trained reserve force is a greater necessity for the navy than for the army, not because the one service is more important than the other, but because