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.
In mustering in, all troops--with only exceptions where their contracts
with state governments demanded--were received "for three years of the
war." At Montgomery, many admirable organizations had been tendered to
the Government for one year; and much discussion had ensued on the
subject of their reception. It was then generally believed, even by the
longest heads in the Cabinet, that the war would be _only a campaign_.
I have elsewhere alluded to the tenacity with which its supporters
clung to this idea; and Mr. Davis was almost alone in his persistent
refusal to accept the troops for less than three years, or the war. To
the one campaign people he said, very justly, that if the troops were
taken for twelve months, and the war were really over in six, here was
the Government saddled with the incubus at a standing army, infinitely
greater than its needs; and here large bodies of men who might be of
incalculable service elsewhere, tied to the vitiating and worse than
useless influences of a peace camp. On the other hand, should the war
last longer, in its very climax a large body of educated soldiers, just
trained to a point of usefulness, would have the right to demand their
discharge, when their places would be difficult to fill even with raw
levies. There was much dissatisfaction among the one campaign people;
but their own argument--that, if received for the war, the troops would
get home before their proposed twelve months expired--was unanswerable.
Now, when the same arguments were used to enforce the passage of the
Conscription Act, the enemies that Mr. Davis had by this time gathered
around him, little recked that in their wisdom, they were quoting him.
This transfer to the Confederate Government covered _all_ the troops of
the several states, except the militia. This, of course, remained under
the authority of their respective governors.
Naturally, with the addition to the force originally contemplated by
"the assembled wisdom of the land," the five brigadier-generals allowed
by Congress proved totally inadequate. A law had subsequently been
forced from them, granting the appointment of five _generals_--a rank
paramount to that of field-marshal in European armies--of the regular
army, who were to command volunteers; and allowing the President to
appoint such number of brigadiers of volunteers as the necessities of
the service demanded.
There had been little hesitancy in the selection of the generals--all
of them men who had served with distinction in the army of the United
States; and who had promptly left it to cast their lot with the new
Government. So little difference could be found in their claims for
precedence, that the dates of their old commissions decided it. They
were Samuel Cooper, Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E.
Johnston and Pierre G. T. Beauregard.
These nominations had been received with unanimity by the Senate, and
with profound satisfaction by the people. Had fitness and right been
consulted equally in other appointments, much priceless blood might
have been saved to the South.
Still, at the time, it was believed that the commissions of brigadier
of volunteers were conferred upon the most meritorious of the resigned
officers; or, where there was reason to hope good results to the
service--upon the best of those men the troops had chosen as
commanders. Strong pressure was, of course, brought to bear upon the
President, regarding these appointments; but the verdict of army and
people was that _these first_ selections were made with as much
judgment and impartiality as the untried state of the army permitted.
But fifteen months' quiet endurance of hardship, danger and doubt; the
universal wail from homes that had never before known, a dark hour, but
where unaccustomed toil now fought vainly against misery and disease; a
pervading sense of insecurity for any point, and that those
homes--broken and saddened as they were--might meet a yet worse
fate--all these causes had done their work. Undaunted and unconquered
as the men were, the bravest and most steadfast still longed for a
sight of the dear faces far away.
The term of service of more than a hundred regiments would expire soon,
enlistments had become slow and were not to be stimulated by any
inducements legislation could offer. The very danger that had been
pointed out in refusing more "twelve months' men" became too imminent
to evade.
The soldiers of the South were more anxious than ever to meet the foe.
Added to their love for the cause, many now felt bitter personal
incentive to fight; and every blow was now struck alike for country and
for self. But while panting for the opportunity, they had a vague
feeling that they must fight nearer home and--forgetting that the sole
protection to their loved ones lay in a union, closer and more
organized than ever--each yearned for the hour when he would be free to
go and strike for the defense of his own hearthstone.
The intent of the conscription was to put every man in the country,
between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, into the army;
restricting "details" from the field within the narrowest limits of
absolute necessity. It retained, of course, every man already in the
field; and, had its spirit been vigorously carried out, would have more
than doubled the army by midsummer.
It provided for the separate enrollment of each state under a
"Commandant of Conscripts;" and for collecting new levies at proper
points in "Camps of Instruction," under competent officers, that
recruits might go to the army prepared in drill and knowledge of camp
life for immediate service.
But, the Conscription Act, like all other congressional measures, was
saddled with a companion, "Bill of Exemptions." This--while so loosely
constructed as almost to nullify all good effect of the law--opened the
door to constant clashing of personal and public interests, and to
great abuses of the privilege.
It would, of course, have been folly to draw every able-bodied male
from districts already so drained of effective population as to have
become almost non-producing. Such a course would have put thousands of
additional mouths into the ranks, and still further have reduced the
straitened means for feeding them. And it would have been equally
suicidal to draw from forge and from lathe, those skilled artisans who
were day and night laboring to put weapons in the hands of those sent
to wield them.
But the "Bill of Exemptions" left possible both of these things, at the
same time that it failed to restrain abuses of privileges in certain
high quarters. The matter of "details" was, of course, essential; and
it was only to be supposed that generals in the field could best judge
the value of a man in another position than the front.
But the most objectionable feature to the army was the "Substitute
Law," which allowed any one able to buy a man, not subject to the
action of conscription, to send him to be shot at in his place.
Soldiers who had endured all perils and trials of the war, naturally
felt that if they were retained in positions they objected to, those
who had been comfortably at home--and in many instances coining that
very necessity into fortunes--should be forced at the eleventh hour to
come and defend themselves and their possessions. Besides, the class of
men who were willing to sell themselves as substitutes were of the very
lowest order. All citizens of the South were liable to conscription;
and the "exempts" open to purchase, were either strange adventurers, or
men over and under age, who--argued the soldiers--if fit for service
should come of their own free will.
Veteran troops had a low enough opinion of the "conscript" as a genus;
but they failed not to evince, by means more prompt than courteous,
their thorough contempt for the "substitute."
These causes produced much discontent, where men would cheerfully have
acquiesced in a law essential to the preservation of the fabric they
had reared and cemented with their blood. To quell this feeling, a
reorganization of the army was effected. A certain time was allowed for
any liable man to volunteer and choose his branch of the service and,
if practicable, his regiment; and so great was the dread of incurring
the odium of conscription, that the skeleton veteran regiments rapidly
filled up to a point of efficiency. They were then allowed to choose
their own officers by election; and, though this lost to the service
many valuable men who had become unpopular, still the army was better
satisfied within itself.
The refilled regiments were re-brigaded by states when practicable, a
general from a different state being sometimes placed in command; and
the whole army was divided into corps, of three divisions each,
commanded by a lieutenant-general.
Whatever the weakness of its construction--and the abuses of the
exemption and detail power in carrying it out--there can be little
doubt that the conscription at this time saved the country from speedy
and certain conquest; and credit should be given to the few active
workers in the congressional hive who shamed the drones into its
passage.
Had the men whose term expired been once permitted to go home, they
could never again have been collected; the army would have dwindled
into a corporal's guard here and there; the masses the North was
pouring down on all sides would have swept the futile resistance before
it; and the contest, if kept up at all, would have degenerated into a
guerrilla warfare of personal hatred and vengeance, without a semblance
of confederation, or nationality.
Once passed, the people of the whole country acquiesced in and approved
the conscription, and gave all the aid of their influence to its
progress. Here and there a loud-mouthed demagogue would attempt to
prejudice the masses against the measure; but scarcely a community
failed to frown down such an effort, in the great extremity of the
country, as vicious and traitorous. The opposition that the project had
met in the administration--from doubt as to its availability--was
removed by its very first working. What had been in its inception an
unpopular measure, received now the approbation of all classes; and the
governors of every state--save one--went to work with hearty good will
to aid its carrying out.
This exception was Governor Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, who entered
into a long wrangle with the administration on the constitutional
points involved. He denied the right of Congress to pass such an act,
and of the Executive to carry it out within the limits of a sovereign
state; averred--with much circumlocution and turgid bombast--that such
attempt would be an infringement of the State Rights of Georgia, which
he could not permit.
Mr. Davis replied in a tone so reasonable, decorous and temperate as to
wring unwilling admiration even from his opponents. He pointed out
briefly the weak points that rendered the governor's position utterly
untenable, ignored the implied warning of resistance to the law; and
succinctly stated that he relied upon the patriotism of Georgians to
grasp the full meaning of the crisis their executive failed to
comprehend; and he closed by stating that the conscription must go on.
Governor Brown found no supporters for his extreme views, even in the
anti-administration party. The people felt the imminence of the danger;
and here, as in all matters of deep import, they placed the
conservation of the cause high above partisan prejudices, or jealousies
of cliques. Utterly silenced by the calm dignity and incisive logic of
Mr. Davis, and abandoned by the few supporters his defiance of the
administration had at first collected around him, Governor Brown was
forced to yield; achieving only the conviction that he had the general
condemnation of the popular voice.
Once set in motion, the machinery of conscription worked rapidly and
somewhat smoothly. The Camps of Instruction in all states not possessed
by the enemy filled rapidly, and the class of conscripts on the whole
was fairly good. By early summer they began to arrive in Richmond and
"Camp Lee"--the station where they were collected--became a point
equally of curiosity to the exempt and of dread to the liable.
It was curious to note the prevalence of the various state-traits,
showing in the squads of conscripts from time to time passing through
the city. The sturdy farmers from the interior, especially those from
Virginia, Georgia and Alabama, though lacking the ease and careless
carriage of the veteran soldier, had a determined port that spoke for
their future usefulness. They were not merry naturally. Called from
accustomed avocations and leaving behind them families defenseless and
without means of support, they could scarcely have marched gaily, even
when willingly, into the Carnival of Death. But they were resolute men,
earnest in their love for the South and honest in their wish to serve
her--with the musket, if that were better than the plough.
Tall and lank, but long-limbed and muscular, the Georgians had a
swinging stride of their own; and, even when the peculiar dialect did
not ring out over their ranks, something in their general style gave
the idea that these were the men who would one day be fellow-soldiers
of the famous "fighting Third."
Ever and anon came a dejected, weary squad with slouching gait and
clayey complexions. Speaking little and then with a flat, unintoned
drawl that told of the vicinage of "salt marsh;" bearing the seeds of
rice-field fevers still in them, and weakly wondering at the novel
sights so far from home, the South Carolina conscripts were not a
hopeful set of soldiers. As soon as the tread of hostile battalions had
echoed on her soil, the sons of the Palmetto State flew to their posts.
State regulars went to the coast, picked volunteer corps came to
Virginia. None stayed behind but those really needed there by the
Government, or that refuse class which had determined to dodge duty,
but now failed to dodge "the conscript man." The former were, of
course, as much needed now as ever; the latter did not ride into the
battle with defiance on their brows, but, on the contrary, seemed
looking over their shoulders to find a hole in the mesh that implacable
conscription had drawn about them.
Their next neighbors of the Old North State were hardly better in the
main, but some men among them seemed not unlike the militia that had
fought so well at Roanoke Island. Green and awkward; shrinking away
from the chaff of passing regulars; looking a little sheepish for being
conscripts, "Zeb Vance's boys" yet proved not unworthy the
companionship of the men of Bethel, of Manassas and of Richmond.
At first the border states, or those overrun by the enemy, gave few
additions to the conscript camps.
Kentucky, on whose adherence and solid aid to the cause such reliance
had been placed in the beginning, had sadly failed to meet it. With the
reminiscences of her early chivalry, her romantic warfare of the "Dark
and Bloody Ground," and the warlike habits of her men, mingled
considerations of the usefulness of her vast resources and her natural
points for defense, lying so near the Federal territory. But as the war
wore on and the state still wavered, the bent of her people seemed
strangely to incline to the northern side. Seeking a neutrality that
was clearly impossible, the division in her councils admitted the
Federals within her borders. Then, when it was hopeless to do more, the
noblest and most honored of her sons left Kentucky and ranged
themselves under that banner they had in vain sought to unfurl over
her.
Like Maryland, Kentucky had early formed a _corps d' elite_, called the
"State Guard," which numbered many of the best-born and most cultured
young men of the state, with headquarters at Louisville. This was
commanded by General S. B. Buckner and under the general control of
Governor Magoffin. This corps was supposed to represent the feelings of
all better citizens in its opposition to the Union cause.
But when the action of political schemers--aided by the designs of a
money-loving and interested populace--laid Kentucky, like Maryland,
bound hand and foot at the feet of the Federal government; when the
Union council of the state strove to disarm or put them in the Union
ranks, the soldiers of the "State Guard" left unhesitatingly and joined
the army of the South in large numbers.
Late in November, 1861, a convention had met; and, declaring all bonds
with the Union dissolved, passed a formal Ordinance of Secession and
sent delegates to ask admission from the Richmond Congress. A month
later Kentucky was formally declared a member of the Confederacy; but
before that time Buckner and Breckinridge had received the commissions,
with which they were to win names as proud as any in the bright array
of the South; a Kentucky brigade--whose endurance and valiant deeds
were to shed a luster on her name that even the acts of her recreant
sons could not dim--were in General Johnston's van; some of her ablest
and most venerable statesmen had given up honors and home for the
privilege of being freemen! All the South knew that the admission of
the state was but an empty form--powerless alike to aid their cause, or
to wrest her from the firm grasp the Federal government had set upon
her.
At the time of the first conscription the few men left in Kentucky, who
had the will, could not make their way into Confederate camps; far less
could the unwilling be forced to come.
Tennessee, also, had been a source of uneasiness to the Richmond
Government from the spread of Union tendencies among a portion of her
inhabitants. Though she had been a member of the Confederacy near a
year, still the half civilized and mountainous portions of her
territory, known as East Tennessee, had done little but annoy the army
near it, by petty hostilities and even by a concerted plan for burning
all the railroad bridges in that section and thus crippling
communications.
Fortunately this scheme had been frustrated, and the half-savage
population--for the better class of Tennesseeans were almost unanimous
in expression of loyalty to the South--kept in subjection.
But now with her soil overrun by Federal soldiers, and with a Federal
fleet in every river, the state could not respond to the call of the
South; and, of course, the soldiers she yielded the conscription were
from the narrow tracts in Confederate possession only.
One hears much of the "Union feeling" in the South during the war.
Immediately on its close, a rank crop of "southern loyalists" had
sprung up in many quarters; basking in the rays of the Freedmen's
Bureau and plentifully manured with promises and brotherly love by the
open-mouthed and close-fisted philanthropy of New England. But like all
dunghill products, the life of these was ephemeral. Its root struck no
deeper than the refuse the war had left; and during its continuance the
genus was so little known that a Carlyle, or a Brownlow, was looked
upon with the same curiosity and disgust as a very rare, but a very
filthy, exotic.
With the exceptions of portions of Kentucky and Tennessee, no parts of
the South were untrue to the government they had accepted.
Florida was called "loyal" and General Finnegan proved with what truth.
"Loyal" Missouri has written her record in the blood of Price's ragged
heroes. Louisiana, crushed by the iron heel of military power, spoiled
of her household gods and insulted in her women's name, still bowed not
her proud head to the flag that had thus become hostile.
And the Valley of Virginia! Ploughed by the tramp of invading
squadrons--her fair fields laid waste and the sanctity of her every
household invaded--alternately the battle-ground of friend and
foe--where was her "loyalty?"
Pinched for her daily food, subsidized to-day by the enemy and freely
giving to-morrow to their own people--with farming utensils destroyed
and barns bursting with grain burned in wanton deviltry--the people of
the Valley still held to the allegiance to the flag they loved; and the
last note of the southern bugle found as ready echo in their hearts as
in the first days of the invasion--
"Their foes had found enchanted ground--
But not a knight asleep!"
In possibly one or two instances, the official reports of invading
generals may have been in some slight degree erroneous; newspaper
correspondents are not in every instance absolutely infallible; and
perhaps it was more grateful to the tender sensibilities of the war
party at the North to feel that there were hearts of brothers beating
for them in the glare of burning rooftrees, or swelling with still more
loyal fervor to the cry of the insulted wife!
But at this day--when the clap-trap of war has died away with the roll
of its drums; when reason may in some sort take the place of partisan
rage--not one honest and informed thinker in the North believes that
"loyal" feeling ever had deep root anywhere among the southern masses;
or that "loyal citizens" were as one in ten thousand!
Whole communities may have murmured; there may have been "schism in the
council and robbery in the mart;" demagogues may have used wild
comparisons and terrible threats about the Government; staunch and
fearless newspapers may have boldly exposed its errors and mercilessly
lashed its weak or unworthy members; some men may have skulked and
dodged from their rightful places in the battle's front!
But, however misplaced the world's verdict may declare their
zeal--however great the error for which they fought and suffered and
died--no man to-day dare refuse to the southern people the need of
their unparalleled constancy!
Even conquered--manacled and gagged by the blind and blood-thirsty
faction in power--the southern people held on to the small fragments
of rights left them, with brave tenacity. Willing to accept that
arbitration to which they had submitted their cause, and ready to
suffer with the bright memories of their past, rather than efface them
by signing their own degradation.
They were conquered and bound in the flesh, but there was enough of
manhood left in the spirit to say--
"Though you conquer us, men of the North, know ye not
What fierce, sullen hatred lurks under the scar?
How loyal to Hapsburg is Venice, I wot!
How dearly the Pole loves 'his father'--the Czar!"
No more singular sight was presented by all the war than the conscript
depot at Richmond. The men from the "camps of instruction" in the
several states--after a short sojourn to learn the simplest routine of
the camp, and often thoroughly untaught in the manual even--were sent
here to be in greater readiness when wanted. Such officers as could be
spared were put in charge of them, and the cadets of the Virginia
Military Institute were employed as drill officers.
Citizens of various states--young, old, honest and vicious alike--the
conscripts were crowded together in camp, left to their own devices
enough to make them learn to live as soldiers; and put through constant
drill and parade to accustom them to the use of arms.
Almost every variety of costume obtained among them. The butternut
jacket with blue pants of the Federal soldier, the homespun shirt with
the cast-off pants of some lucky officer; and the black broadcloth
frock and jauntily-cut pants that some friendly lady had ransacked her
absent one's stores to give, all appeared on dress parade; surmounted
by every variety of head gear, from the straw hat of many seasons to
the woolen night-cap the good "marm" had knitted.
Notwithstanding much work, there was still too much leisure time; and
"apple jack" filtered its way through provost guards, and cards, the
greasiest and most bethumbed, wiled many an hour for the unwary and
verdant.
The lower class of conscripts were almost invariably from the
cities--the refuse population of the wharf, bar-room and hotel.
Unwilling to volunteer, these gentry skulked behind every excuse to
avoid conscription; but when forced off at last, they and the
substitutes banded in an unholy brotherhood to make the best of their
position.
Ringleaders in every insubordination and every vice they assumed a
_degage_, or air of superiority, and fleeced their verdant companions
of the very clothes they wore; while they made the impure air of the
camps more foul with ribald jest and profane song.
A single glance segregated this element from the quiet country
conscripts. The latter were generally gloomy, thinking of the field
untilled and the wife and little ones, perhaps, unfed. When they drank
"new dip" it was to drown thought, for the fumes of every stew-pan
brought back shadowy memories of home and comfort; and when they slept
on the damp ground--wrapped in the chance rug, or worn scrap of carpet
charity had bestowed--a sad procession marched through their dreams,
and sorrowful and starving figures beckoned them from mountain side and
hamlet.
Great misery and destitution followed the conscription. Large numbers
of men, called from their fields just as they were most needed, cut
down greatly the supplies of grain. Almost all who remained at home
bought their exemption by giving so large a portion of their product to
Government as to reduce civil supplies still more; and these two facts
so enhanced the price of food--and so reduced the value of money--that
the poorer classes rapidly became destitute of all but the barest means
of life. Whether this was the result of inevitable circumstance, or the
offspring of mismanagement, in no way affects the fact. Food became
very hard to procure even at high prices; and the money to get it was
daily more and more monopolized by a grasping few.
The Confederate soldier now had a double share of toil and torture.
When the smoke of the fight rolled away, and with it the sustaining
glow of battle, thought bore him but grim companionship at the camp
fireside; for he saw famine stalk gaunt and pale through what had been
his home.
When tidings of want and misery came, he strove to bear them. When he
heard of burning and outrage--where naught was left to plunder--who may
wonder that he sometimes fled from duty to his country, to that duty
more sacred to him of saving his wife and children!
Who does not wonder, rather, in reading the history of those frightful
days, that desertions were so few--that untutored human nature could
hide in its depths such constancy and devotion to principle!
But, great as were the privation and the suffering caused by the first
conscription, they were still to be increased. Through those twin
abortions of legislation, the substitute and exemption bills, the
results of the first law proved inadequate to fill the gaps of the
fatal fights of the summer.
Detail and substitute had done their work, as thoroughly as had the
shells of Malvern Hill, the bullets of Sharpsburg, or the raw corn of
the retreat to the river.
More men were wanted! At whatever cost in territory, or in suffering,
more men must be had. And on the 27th September, Congress passed an
act extending the age of conscription from 18 to 45 years. But the
exemption and substitute laws remained as effective as ever. True,
some feeble moves were made toward narrowing the limits of the former;
but while it stood a law in any form, enough could be found to read it
in any way. The extension law, while it still further drained the
almost exhausted country--and left in its track deeper suffering and
destitution, that brought famine from a comparative term into an actual
verity--still left in the cities an able-bodied and numerous class;
who, if not actually useless, were far more so than the food-producing
countrymen sent to the front to take their places.
Yet so blind was the Congress--so impervious to the sharpest teachings
of necessity and so deaf to the voice of common sense and reason, that
unceasingly upbraided it--that this state of things continued more than
a year from the passage of the extension act.
Then, when it was almost too late for human aid to save the cause--when
the enemy had not only surrounded the contracted territory on every
side, but had penetrated into its very heart--the substitute bill was
repealed, and every man in the land between the ages of 18 and 45,
declared a Confederate soldier subject to service. Then, too, the
abuses of exemption and detail, so often and so clearly pointed out,
were looked into and measurably corrected.
Further than this, all boys from 16 to 18, and older men, from 45 to
60, though not conscribed, were formed into reserve "home guards;" and
then General Grant wrote to Washington that the cause was won when the
Rebels "robbed the cradle and the grave."
But the infantile and the moribund murmured not; and more than once a
raid was turned and a sharp skirmish won, when the withered cheek of
the octogenarian was next the rosy face of the beardless stripling!
Only one complaint came, and that was heard with grim amusement alike
by veteran, by conscript, and by substitute.
The substitute buyers now loudly raised a wail of anguish. Plethoric
ledger and overflowing till, alas! must be left; the auctioneer's
hammer and the peaceful shears must alike be thrown aside, and the
rusty musket grasped instead; soft beds and sweet dreams of to-morrow's
profit must be replaced by red mud and the midnight long roll!
It was very bitter; and rising in their wrath, a few of these railed at
the perfidy of the Government in breaking a contract; and even employed
counsel to prove that in effect they were already in the field.
One ardent speculator even sought the War Department and logically
proved that, having sent a substitute, who was virtually himself, and
that substitute having been killed, he himself was a dead man, from
whom the law could claim no service!
But the Department was now as deaf as the adder of Scripture; and the
counsel, let us hope, pleaded not very earnestly. So the substitute
buyers--except in the few cases where the long finger of influential
patronage could even now intervene--went, as their ill-gotten dollars
had gone before.
It is plainly impossible, in limits of a desultory sketch, to give even
a faint outline of the conscription. Its ramifications were so
great--the stress that caused it so dire, and the weaknesses and abuses
that grew out of it so numerous, that a history of them were but a
history of the war.
Faithfully and stringently carried out, it might have saved the South.
Loosely constructed and open to abuse, it was still the most potent
engine the Government had used; and while it failed of its intent, it
still for the first time caused the invader to be met by anything
approaching the whole strength of the country.
Under its later workings, every man in the South was a soldier; but
that consummation, which earlier might have been salvation--came only
when the throes of death had already begun to seize her vitals.