Page:Harris Dickson--The unpopular history of the United States.djvu/155

The Confederacy First Sees the Light get worse. To keep that furnace going full blast you must have plenty more coal, right handy in your cellar. No man is fool enough to light one fire, then sit down and depend upon voluntary contributions of coal that the neighbors may send in. Not much! Your full supply must be steady, reliable, convenient — where it may be shoveled into the proper place at the proper time.

It's exactly like that with an army during a protracted war — you must know where the supply of man-power is coming from. Volunteers will never maintain a uniform supply of the numbers needed and, above all, when needed.

At the opening of the Civil War, both the Union and Confederate governments pursued the same temporizing and uncertain policy of relying upon voluntary enlistments for short terms. After the Confederate defeat at Fort Donelson, the evacuation of Kentucky and Tennessee, and the battle of Shiloh, the Confederate Congress first displayed to the world the full meaning and extent of the [137]