Four Years in Rebel Capitals Part 20

More men, was the cry from every general in the field. With more men, the army of Mana.s.sas 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 cla.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.sage 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 a.s.sembled 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 "Subst.i.tute 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 cla.s.s of men who were willing to sell themselves as subst.i.tutes 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 "subst.i.tute."

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 pa.s.sage.

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 ma.s.ses 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 pa.s.sed, 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 ma.s.ses 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 cla.s.ses; 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 const.i.tutional points involved. He denied the right of Congress to pa.s.s such an act, and of the Executive to carry it out within the limits of a sovereign state; averred--with much circ.u.mlocution 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sing through the city. The st.u.r.dy 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sing regulars; looking a little sheepish for being conscripts, "Zeb Vance's boys" yet proved not unworthy the companionship of the men of Bethel, of Mana.s.sas 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 n.o.blest 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, pa.s.sed 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 l.u.s.ter 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 cla.s.s 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 G.o.ds and insulted in her women's name, still bowed not her proud head to the flag that had thus become hostile.