ot for this--for
vengeance!

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