"That is what I said, and I will stick to it," exclaimed Dick. "They have no right—"
"Hold on a bit," the captain interposed.
"They may not have the right but they have the power, and you will have to give in. They offer you inducements to re-enlist for two years. You will be regarded as volunteers, and be allowed the privilege of changing your officers and electing new ones."
This was a big inducement indeed. The men laughed derisively when they heard it.
"If you don't volunteer, but insist on leaving the army when your term of service expires, you will never get out of the camp," continued the captain. "You will be conscripted."
"I don't care if I am," answered Dick, indignantly. "I'll not do duty."
"Then you will be treated as a mutineer and run the risk of being shot without the benefit of a drum-head court-martial," said the captain; whereupon the men backed off, thrust their hands into their pockets and looked at him and at one another. "I tell you, boys, this is no time for foolishness," the captain went on, earnestly. "Ever since Bull Run the Northern people have been showing the mettle that's in them. That defeat got their blood up and they mean business. They have more volunteers than they want. Their armies are growing stronger every day, while ours are growing weaker every hour. To be honest, there isn't half the patriotism now there was among us when these troubles first begun. Desertions are alarmingly frequent, and voluntary enlistments are almost entirely suspended. We must have men to fight our battles, or else surrender our cherished liberties to such Hessians and Tories as Curtis brought against us at Pea Ridge."
"And whipped us with," added one of the men; and the captain couldn't contradict him, for it was the truth. He could only look at him reproachfully.
"'Is Sparta dead in your veins?'" exclaimed the captain, quoting from the speech of Spartacus to his fellow gladiators. "Are you willing to give up whipped and permit a lot of Regicides and Roundheads to put their feet on your necks?"
Taking this for his text the officer spoke earnestly for ten minutes, drawing largely from the fiery editorials of the Southern papers, which he had read so often that he had them by heart, and trying his best to infuse a little of his own spirit into the angry, scowling men who had crowded around him, but without any very flattering success. There was but one thought in their minds—they had been duped by the Richmond government, which had so suddenly developed into a despotism that it was plain the machinery for it had been prepared long before. They could not go home even for a short time to visit their friends after their term of service had expired, and it is no wonder that they felt sore over it. Seeing that he could not arouse their patriotism, the captain next tried to arouse their combativeness.