>Was sitting it out an option back then? No draft with the consequences of sitting it out after being shot or hanged?

Don't know about the south, but there was conscription in the north.
A rich man could avoid conscription by paying an Irish immigrant $100 to die in his stead.
Eventually, my Irish predecessors had had their fill of it and the result wasn't pretty.
Charlottesville was a walk in the park compared to what happened in New York.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_draft_riots