ttsburg Landing; but of course the fact that Beauregard
had sustained a crushing defeat and been forced to retire from Corinth,
was carefully concealed. It was to be expected, the paper said, that
twenty-five thousand fresh men would turn the tide of battle in favor of
the enemy, but even against these overwhelming odds the Confederates had
held their own until noon, and then left the field in good order.

"I don't see anything to feel bad over in that account," said Rodney,
whose war-like spirit arose every time he heard a glowing story of a
fight. "We knew when we went into this thing that the Yankees could
raise more men than we could, and we expected to fight against big odds.
Now for the conscripts," and when Rodney said this, he thought of Tom
Randolph, and hoped that he would be the first Mooreville citizen to
"draw a prize."

He thought he could imagine how Tom would look and feel after he had
made a campaign with a foot or more of mud under his feet, dripping
storm-clouds over his head and not so much as a crumb of corn bread in
his haversack, and laughed silently as he pictured him at a smoking
camp-fire with a lot of veterans "poking fun" at him. His own term of
service would soon expire, and he hoped he should reach home in time to
see Tom march out with the first squad of conscripts that left
Mooreville; but as Dick proceeded to read the abstract of the Act as it
appeared in the paper, all the while pushing the sheet farther and
farther from him as his amazement and anger increased, Rodney found that
the situation was not quite so amusing as he thought, and that he,
Rodney Gray, was in a worse box than his friend, Tom Randolph. It was
the first general conscription law of the Confederacy, and "it withdrew
every non-exempt citizen, between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five,
from State control, and placed him absolutely at the disposal of the
President during the war." When Dick had read this far he looked at his
comrades to see what they thought of it.

"Why, it's--it's--the Czar of Russia couldn't do worse," exclaimed the
first one who recovered control of his tongue. "It's a fraud--a despotic
act. Where are our State Rights now, I should like to know?"

"Go on," said Captain Jones, who stood on the outskirts of the group but
within hearing distance. "There's worse to come."

Dick Graham, who did not see how anything could be worse, went on with
his reading and found that the Act "annulled all contra