The clergy were non-combatants by profession, and a few only were found in other than chaplain's duty.

Civil engineers, railroad contractors, architects, and manufacturers were well represented and were valuable men.

Scarce any single qualification was more useful in organizing the army than that of using and handling considerable bodies of men such as mechanics and railway employees.
The profession of the law is in our country so closely allied to political activity that the lawyers who put on the uniform were most likely to be classed among political appointments.

The term was first applied to men like Banks, Butler, Baker, Logan, and Blair, most of whom left seats in Congress to serve in the army.

If they had not done so, it would have been easy for critics to say that the prominent politicians took care to keep their own bodies out of harm's way.