Gradually this spirit inoculated their fellow-soldiers. The bitter feelings of the struggle, strong enough before, became intensified; and in every Confederate camp was brewing a sullen and somber war-cloud, the sudden flashes from which were to strike terror to the heart of the North before that summer was done.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE CONSCRIPTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
In the midst of the gloom, weighing upon the country about the days of Shiloh, the Confederate Congress moved on a point of vital import to its cause. Weak and vacillating as that body had proved; lacking as it was in decision, to force its views on the executive, or to resist popular clamor, backed by brutum fulmen of the press—a moment had come when even the blindest of legislators could not fail to see.
More men, was the cry from every general in the field. With more men, the army of Manassas could have carried the war over the Potomac frontier; perhaps have ended it there. With more men, Nashville would have been saved and Shiloh won. With more men, the enemy, pouring over the daily contracting frontiers, if not checked in their advance, might be restrained from, or chastised for, the brutal and uncivilized warfare that now began to wage, away from all great army centers.
Great as was the need for new blood and new brains, in the council of the nation—still more dire was the need for fresh muscle in its armies. Levies must be raised, or all was lost; and the glories that had wreathed the southern flag, even when it drooped lowest—priceless blood that had been poured as a sacrament to consecrate it—would all be set at naught by the imbecility of the chosen lawgivers of the people. Thus, after a pressure of months from cooler heads in government, the more thoughtful of the people, and the most farsighted of the press, the few live men in Congress wrung from it the "Conscription Act" on the 16th day of April.
The reader may have gained some faint idea of the alacrity with which men of all classes rushed into the ranks; of the steady endeavor and unmurmuring patience with which they bore the toils and dangers of their chosen position; of their unwavering determination to fight the good fight to the end. That the same spirit as genuinely pervaded the masses of the army now, there is little doubt; but the South—instead of husbanding her resources, had slept during these precious months the North utilized to bring a half million of men against her.
Now, when she woke to the plain fact that her existence depended—not only on keeping in the ranks every man already there, but of adding largely to their numbers—it was but natural that the Government's torpor had, in a slight degree, reacted upon its soldiers.
When the Government had assumed more form and regularity with increased proportions and the conviction, forced upon the most obtuse mind, that a struggle was at hand demanding most perfect organization, the looseness of a divided system had become apparent. The laws against any State maintaining a standing army were put into effect; and the combined military power was formally turned over, as a whole, to the Confederate authorities. This change simply meant that complete organizations were accepted as they stood, as soldiers of the Confederacy instead of soldiers of the states; the men were mustered into the Confederate service and the officers had their state commissions replaced by those from the Confederate War Department. From that date, the troops were to look to the central Government for their pay, subsistence, and supplies.