short leave of absence with their families, and to join other branches
of the services, more especially cavalry. Some of the companies had
actually left, and were a mile or two from camp when orders came to
return. The Conscript Act had been passed, making it obligatory on
all, between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, to enter or remain
in the army. The men took their sudden return in good humor, for
really it was only the married men, who had left their families so
unprepared twelve months before, who cared to return home; for some
of the young men, who were under the conscript age, refused to leave.
Those who had to return received a lot of good-natured badgering at
their sudden return to the army. "Hello, boys, when did you get back?
What's the news at home?" "How did you find all?" were some of the
soothing jeers the "returned sinners" had to endure; and as so great
a number had expressed a desire to join the cavalry, not a few
were asked: "Did you bring your horses with you?" But all was soon
forgotten, for in a few days a reorganization was ordered to take
place, and new officers elected.

The Conscript Act was condemned in unmeasured terms in many places at
the South, but its necessity and expediency was never doubted. To have
allowed so great a number to absent themselves from the army at this
time, in the face of an overwhelming enemy, and that enemy advancing
upon our Capitol, was more than the morale of the army would admit.
Not altogether would the absence of the soldiers themselves effect the
army, but in the breaking up of organizations, for in some companies
all had re-enlisted, while in others one-half, and in many cases
none. New regiments would have had to be formed out of the re-enlisted
companies, and new companies out of the large number of recruits, now
in camps of instruction. So by keeping up the old organizations, and
filling up the ranks by the conscripts at home, the army would be