First Military Draft in the U.S.

Date: July 7, 1863 • Location: Paris, France

The United States begins its first military draft; exemptions cost $300.

Conscription, also known as the draft in American English and Philippine English, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day under various names. The modern system of near-universal national conscription for young men dates to the French Revolution in the 1790s, where it became the basis of a very large and powerful military. Most European nations later copied the system in peacetime, so that men at a certain age would serve 1 to 8 years on active duty and then transfer to the reserve force.