By NED HARRISON

Conscription? The draft? These concepts were foreign to both sides in our Civil War. Conscription is "the enrolling by compulsion for military service." The "draft" means exactly the same thing. By either name, the concept was rejected by the vast majority of citizens of both nations.

But war brings sacrifices and war brings problems - and one of the problems for the South was a shortage of manpower. Had it been a short war, the Confederacy would have been fine. It won at Fort Sumter in April 1861, and then at Manassas in July. If President Abraham Lincoln had then said that the Union would fight no more and the South could have its freedom, all would have been well.

But Lincoln's conviction was that he had the obligation to turn over to his successor a nation "unimpaired" by his presidency. A nation with fewer states, the result of Southern secession, would be a nation "impaired." Thus, he decided to fight the war until the North had won.

By February 1862, the Confederacy was in trouble. Twin defeats at Forts Henry and Donelson opened the Southern heartland to Union riverboats. When this was followed in April with 10,694 Confederate casualties at Shiloh, President Jefferson Davis was forced to seek additional manpower.

He considered it vital to preserve the new nation. A nation, new or old, must be defended from outside attack. The nation had been attacked, and there were too few volunteers to defend it. Hence, a call for conscription. (The North suffered 13,047 casualties and convinced President Lincoln and a Union general named Ulysses Grant that the war would be hard and it would be bitter.)

The conscription law in the South was several weeks in preparation. It made "all persons residing within the Confederate States between the ages of 18 and 35 years" liable for military service. It was a demand for services by a government that had seceded to prevent a national government from interfering with the lives of its citizens - but this was exactly what Richmond was doing to its own citizens.

The call to service aroused a firestorm. Confederate governors railed against the demands of a central government that took no notice of states' rights and the rights of the individual, which were the reasons for secession.

Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens was also violently against the draft; he considered it "a blow to the very vitals of liberty" by a president (Davis) who was "aiming at absolute power. Far better that our country should be overrun by the enemy, our cities sacked and burned, and our land laid desolate, than that the people should suffer the citadel of their liberties to be entered and taken by professed friends."

Sen. Louis Wigfall of Texas spoke in support of the draft. With biting logic, he told his colleagues to "cease this child's play." He reminded the senate that "the enemy are in some portions of every State in the Confederacy ... We need a large army. How are you going to get it [unless you understand that] no man has any individual rights which come into conflict with the welfare of the country?"

The law passed, but it was the most unpopular law ever enacted by the Confederacy.

As manpower shortages continued to threaten the Southern military, the law was changed in January 1864 to include "all white males between 18 and 45" and a month later to those between 17 and 50.

To put the conscription law into perspective, it must be noted that the manpower shortage was so critical that from April 1864 to early 1865, conscription accounted for between one-fourth and one-third of all Southern armies east of the Mississippi.

By 1917 and World War I, the draft was basic to the way America raised an army; and by World War II, there was no question that a draft was needed for a war fought on every continent.

Virginia and the Civil War

In a recent column I invited readers to write about any of their ancestors who fought at Gettysburg. Floyd Curtis of Falmouth wrote about his great-great-grandfather, John Francis Curtis, a "farmer, born in Stafford County, Va., [who] enlisted in Co. I, 47th Virginia Infantry in 1861. He fought in several engagements before Gettysburg and was present on the third day when the 47th, as part of Brockenbrough's Brigade, took part in Pickett's famous assault.

"Brockenbrough was on the extreme left of the assaulting column and never got as close to the Federal lines as some of the others. John Curtis survived Gettysburg and was captured the next spring at the Wilderness. He survived the winter at Elmira, N.Y. This was the North's answer to Andersonville and he was lucky to survive. He was paroled March '65 and was on his way back to his unit when Lee surrendered. He lived the rest of his life in Stafford County [and] is buried in the family cemetery there."

The Harrison files

Mud march placed soldiers under extreme stress

Political general not equipped to lead

Lack of telegraph lines hampers the South

Role of rail transport becomes critical

Railroads were a major part of military strategy

Lee proves himself with Seven Days' Battle

The end of 'Stonewall' Jackson