The introduction of compulsory service in the North has its place in our subsequent story. The system that preceded it need not be dwelt upon here, because, full of instruction as a technical study of it (such as has been made by Colonel Henderson) must be, no brief survey by an amateur could be useful. It is necessary, however, to understand the position in which Lincoln's Administration was placed, without much experience In America, or perhaps elsewhere in the world, to guide it. It must not be contended, for it cannot be known that the problem was fully and duly envisaged by Lincoln on his Cabinet, but it would probably in any case have been impossible for them to pursue from the first a consecutive and well-thought-out policy for raising an army and keeping up its strength. The position of the North differed fundamentally from that of the South; the North experienced neither the ardour nor the throes of a revolution; it was never in any fear of being conquered, only of not conquering. There was nothing, therefore, which at once bestowed on the Government a moral power over the country vastly in excess of that which it exercised in normal times. This, however, was really necessary to it if the problem of the Army was to be handled in the way which was desirable from a military point of view. Compulsory service could not at first be thought of. It was never supposed that the tiny regular Army of the United States Government could be raised to any very great size by voluntary enlistment, and the limited increase of it which was attempted was not altogether successful. The existing militia system of the several States was almost immediately found faulty and was discarded. A great Volunteer Force had to be raised which should be under the command of the President, who by the Constitution is Commander-in-Chief of the forces of the Union, but which must be raised in each State by the State Governor (or, if he was utterly wanting, by leading local citizens). Now State Governors are not--it must be recalled--officers under the President, but independent potentates acting usually in as much detachment from him as the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford or Cambridge from the Board of Education or a Presbyterian minister from a bishop. This group of men, for the most part able, patriotic, and determined, were there to be used and had to be consulted. It follows that the policy of the North in raising and organising its armies had at first to be a policy evolved between numerous independent authorities which never met and were held together by a somewhat ignorant public opinion, sometimes much depressed and sometimes, which was worse, oversanguine. It is impossible to judge exactly how ill or how well Lincoln, under such circumstances, grappled with this particular problem, but many anomalies which seem to us preposterous--the raising of raw new regiments when fine seasoned regiments were short of half their