In
early 1862 the difference in manpower between the two sides became
more noticeable. Whereas the Union consisted of 23 states and 22,000,000
people, the Confederacy had only 9,000,000 people (including 3,500,000
slaves). President Jefferson Davis now
announced that the South could not win the war without conscription.
In April the Confederate Congress passed the Conscription Act which
drafted white men between eighteen and thirty-five for three years'
service.
(1)
Braxton Bragg and senior officers in
the Army of Tennessee sent a letter to General Samuel Copper about
the need for fresh troops (25th July, 1862)
We,
the undersigned officers of the Confederate Army, being deeply impressed
with the belief that unless the ranks are speedily replenished our
cause will be lost, and being thoroughly satisfied that there are
enough able-bodied young men out of the service to accomplish that
object, would earnestly implore the president of the Confederate States
to take prompt measures to recruit our wasted armies by fresh levies
from home.
We especially deplore the unfortunate provision of the exemption bill
which has allowed more than 150,000 soldiers to employ substitutes,
and we express our honest conviction that not 1 in 100 of these substitutes
is now in the service. In numerous instances, fraudulent papers were
employed; in others, diseased men were presented and accepted but
not to be discharged; in still more cases, vicious and unprincipled
substitutes were brought up but to desert at the first favorable moment.
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