Military Units Formed in Indiana
Lincoln initially requested that Indiana send 7,500 men to join the Union Army. Five hundred men assembled the first day, and within three weeks, more than 22,000 men had volunteered, so many that thousands had to be turned away. Before the war ended, Indiana contributed a total of 208,367 men, 15% of the state's total population, to fight and serve in the Union Army, and 2,130 to serve in the Union Navy. Most of the soldiers from Indiana were volunteers, and 11,718 men reenlisted at least once. The state only turned to conscription towards the end of the war, and a relatively small total of 3,003 men were drafted. These volunteers and conscripts allowed the state to supply the Union with 126 infantry regiments, 26 batteries of artillery, and 13 regiments of cavalry. By the end of the war, 46 general officers in the Union army had resided in Indiana at some point in their lives.
More than 35% of the men from Indiana who entered the Union Army became casualties: 24,416 (about 6.75% of total war casualties) lost their lives in the conflict, and more than 50,000 were wounded In numbers, this represents more deaths than South Carolina lost in the war.
