Union soldiers were paid an average of $13 per month (around $200-$300 in 2021, depending on which year of the Civil War) but received an enlistment bonus of as much as $300 (equal to about $4800-$7800 in 2021). Men could sign up, receive their bounty, desert the army, and then enlist again in a different area under a different name, if they were not caught. This made it hard to correctly estimate the exact number of Union deserters: if a man enlisted and subsequently re-enlisted three times under different names, records would indicate that four men deserted, when in reality only one man deserted.