on to condemn the policy of enlistments for short terms, "against
which," said he, "I have steadily contended"; and he enlarged
upon the danger that even patriotic men, who intended to
reenlist, might go home to put their affairs in order and that
thus, at a critical moment, the army might be seriously reduced.
The accompanying report of the Confederate Secretary of War
showed a total in the army of 340,250 men. This was an inadequate
force with which to meet the great hosts which were being
organized against it in the North. To permit the slightest
reduction of the army at that moment seemed to the Southern
President suicidal.

But Davis waited some time longer before proposing to the
Confederate Congress the adoption of conscription. Meanwhile, the
details of two great reverses, the loss of Roanoke Island and the
loss of Fort Donelson, became generally known. Apprehension
gathered strength. Newspapers began to discuss conscription as
something inevitable. At last, on March 28, 1862, Davis sent a
message to the Confederate Congress advising the conscription of
all white males between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. For
this suggestion Congress was ripe, and the first Conscription Act
of the Confederacy was signed by the President on the 16th of
April. The age of eligibility was fixed as Davis had advised; the
term of service was to be three years; every one then in service
was to be retained in service during three years from the date of
his original enlistment.

This statute may be thought of as a great victory on the part of
the Administration. It was the climax of a policy of
centralization in the military establishment to which Davis had