ption proclamation which called into the service of
the Confederacy all white men between the ages of eighteen and
forty-five who were not legally exempted from military service.
The date of the proclamation shows that it was forced upon the
Confederates by Lee's abortive invasion of Pennsylvania, and was
intended to fill the ranks of the army which had been shattered
and beaten on the field of Gettysburg. Further legislation by the
Confederate Congress in February, 1864, extended the enrolment so
as to include all white male residents of the Confederate States
between the ages of seventeen and fifty. In February, 1865, Mr.
Davis estimated that more than one hundred and fifty thousand men
were added to the Confederate armies by this forced conscription.

Comparing the strength of the Confederate Army with the population
from which it was recruited, and taking into account the absolute
lack of provision made for the comfort of the Southern soldier,
the insufficient provision made for his sustenance and clothing,
and the consequent desertion which made it imperative to repair
diminished strength, it is evident that the conscription legislation
bore with fearful severity upon the people of the South. Comprehensive
as was the Enrolment Act, which rendered liable to military duty
the entire male population between the ages of seventeen and fifty,
the South was compelled to overstep its self-imposed limit. The
forces which Lee and Johnston surrendered contained so many boys
unfitted by youth and so many men unfitted by age for military
service, that a Northern General epigrammatically remarked that
for its armies the Confederacy had been compelled in the end to
rob alike the cradle and the grave.

Grave misstatements however have been made in regard to the diminished
forces of the Confederacy at the cessation of the war. The astounding
assertion has crept into statements intended to be historical that
Lee surrendered an army of only ten thousand men, and Johnston an
army of most insignificant numbers in comparison with that of
Sherman. An accurate count made of the forces surrendered by the
Confederacy and paroled by the North at the conclusion of the war,
shows that the following numbers were embodied in the various
Southern armies and were rendering active service in the field:--

The army of Virginia under General Robert E. Lee . . . . 28,356
The army of Tennessee under General Joseph E. Johnston . . 3