3,371 on 7 January 1865;[4] This decree, appealing to the patriotic feelings of the Brazilian people, created military corps for the service of war, with the denomination of Voluntários da Pátria.

[6] In Uruguaiana, he presented himself at the army camp as the country's first volunteer,[7][8] using this political strategy to serve as an example both to the military stationed there and to the rest of Brazil.

The imperial government guaranteed several advantages to the volunteers, such as a prize of three hundred thousand réis upon finishing service; plots of land with 22,500 fathoms (49,500 square metres) in military or agricultural colonies; preference in public jobs; honorary officer ranks; freedom to slaves; assistance to orphans, widows and the war maimed.

[4][10] Contrary to the National Guard, whose force, controlled by the local elites, was reluctant to go to war, there was great patriotic enthusiasm among the common people to fill the ranks of the corps of Voluntários da Pátria.

This caused slaves to flee alone or in groups from the plantations, and to present themselves to recruiters with false names in order to mislead their masters, even with the government turning a blind eye.

[9] For war maimed people who had no resources for their own subsistence, the government created the Asylum for the Invalides of the Homeland, inaugurated on 29 July 1868, on the Bom Jesus da Coluna island, in Guanabara Bay.

There they remained under the care of the government, surviving on the resources raised during the war by the Commercial Association of Rio de Janeiro, but far from the eyes of the population.

[19] Outdated weapons, although in a lesser number, were still used, especially by the corps of Voluntários da Pátria, which at the beginning of the war were still equipped with flintlock guns with smoothbore barrels, before receiving modern armament.