Both sides felt the terrific strain of the war. The Confederacy in April passed a conscription act, which made all able-bodied males between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five years soldiers for the war. All such were taken from the control of the State of which they were residents and placed at the disposal of President Davis until the close of the war. This conscription act was soon made much more severe in its provisions. THE CONFEDERATE PRIVATEERS. One source of help to the Confederacy was her privateers, which wrought immense damage to northern shipping. England assisted in fitting them out. Despite the protests of Minister Adams, many of these were allowed to put to sea. One of the first was the _Oreto_, afterward known as the _Florida_. She succeeded in eluding the blockade at Mobile, through flying the British flag, delivered her valuable freight, received her armament, and came forth again in the latter part of December and began her wholesale destruction of American merchantmen. The privateer _Sumter_ was driven into Gibraltar, and so closely watched by the _Tuscarora_ that Captain Semmes, her commander, sold her, and made his way to England, where the English built for him the most famous privateer the Confederacy ever had--the _Alabama_--of which much more will be told further on. THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. The national government had learned by this time the full measurement of the gigantic task before it. By the close of the year, 1,300,000 volunteers had been called for, and the daily expenses amounted to $3,000,000. The conviction, too, was growing that slavery was the real cause of the war, and the time had come to treat it with less consideration than many leading officers and men whose patriotism could not be doubted were disposed to show toward the "peculiar institution." President Lincoln was one of the wisest men who ever sat in the executive chair, and none read so unerringly the signs of the times as he. The Abolitionists were impatient with his slowness, while many of the doubting thought he went too fast. He waited until the right hour, and then issued his Emancipation Proclamation. [Illustration: UNITED STATES MILITARY TELEGRAPH WAGON.] This appeared soon after the battle of Antietam, and it is said was the fulfillment of the pledge President Lincoln had made to heaven that, if Lee's invasion was turned back, he would issue the great paper, which, in effect, would see free 4,000,000 bondsmen. In it he warned the seceding States that in every one which failed to return to its allegiance by the first of January, 1863, he would declare the slaves free. The warning was received with scorn, as was expected. From the date named, therefore, all the armed forces of the Union treated the slaves as free wherever encountered. Before long colored men were enlisted as soldiers and sailors, and they bore no inconsiderable part in the prosecution of the war. "GREENBACKS."