This presentation compares manpower shortages during the US Civil War and during Brazil’s War with Paraguay (both in the 1860s), and the crisis those shortages created in both governments. In particular, Dr. Izecksohn will analyze the consequences of the Enrollment Act (1863) that nationalized recruitment in the United States, and the Brazilian government’s decree 3383 (1865), that transferred nearly 15,000 soldiers of the Brazilian National Guard to the front with Paraguay.
Vitor Izecksohn is a professor of history at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He has a PhD in history from the University of New Hampshire. He has received a number of awards and fellowships at places like the John Carter Brown Library, Gilder Lehrman Institutes, and the Max Planck Institute, among others. Dr. Izecksohn is the author of numerous publications, including Slavery and War in the Americas: Race, Citizenship, and State Building in the United States and Brazil, 1861–1870; Brazil: A History of the Brazilian Liberal Political Though in the Twentieth Century; and The Chorus of Disagreement: The Paraguayan War and the Professional Nucleus of the Brazilian Corps of Officers.