NATURALIZATION.; Unprecedented Rush for Papers Naturalization of Discharged Soldiers The Law of the Case Twenty Thousand votes Added to the County Vote.
Published: October 26, 1864

The rush for maturalization papers this season is unusually large, even fer a Presidential campaign. The Judges of the Superior Court and Court of Common Pleas have their hands full with the work of transforming aliens into full-grown citizens, at the rate of nearly five hundred per day. This unprecedented rush is partially owing to the fact that large numbers of foreigners, who have refrained from taking out their papers from a dread of making themselves liable to a draft, have come to the conclusion that the conscription will never be enforced in New-York, and that they may as well have their share of the fun of electing a President.

About five per cent. of the number who take out their papers are "]

That's interesting. The Irish who did fight probably did so thinking they were going to be able to support their family or they were 'unattached' and were happy to go shoot someone. Paid substitutes? Probably some of them were. The reason they were not rounded up and marched was because the vast industrial mechanism was in need of male workers for low wages. The Southern ports were lacking any real work for stevadores but the Northern ports never shut down.

I don't know the ratio of Irish to Brits, French, German, Whatever's but I think I've read somewhere that the majority in that era were Irish.

Some things don't change. Immigration issues being one of them. (eye rolling smilie)
Pam