But the stern and pressing exigencies of the times outweighed considerations of even the gravest import, and induced a resort to that measure which the President had hoped to avoid, but upon which now depended the salvation of the country. In accordance with the recommendation of the President, Congress, on the 16th of April, 1862, adopted the conscription law, which was thenceforward, with many material modifications rendered necessary by circumstances, the basis of the military system of the Confederacy. This law placed at the disposal of the President, during the war, every citizen not belonging to a class exempted, between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, thus annulling all contracts made with volunteers for short terms. By this act, the States surrendered their control over such of their citizens as came within the terms of the act, and in each State were located camps of instruction, for the reception and training of conscripts. There were other features of the conscription law, having in view an increased solidity and harmony of the army organization. It is impossible to overestimate the immediate benefits realized to the Confederacy from this legislation. The incipient disorganization of the army, consequent upon the numerous furloughs granted to such of the men as would reënlist for the war, was instantly checked; large additions were made to commands already in the field, and the discipline and general frame-work of the army greatly improved. Second in importance to the adoption of the act of conscription only, among the accessions of strength to the military system of the Confederacy at this period, was the appointment of General Lee to the general command of the armies, "under the direction of the President."[46] The nature of the position thus assigned to one whom the concurrent criticism of his age pronounces the most eminent of American commanders, has been much misunderstood, and with its discussion has been associated much injurious misrepresentation of President Davis. General Lee, after the failure of his campaign in North-western Virginia, in the autumn of 1861, became the object of a vast amount of disparaging criticism. His case was, indeed, in marked coincidence with that of Sidney Johnston. Both were distinguished in the Federal service; previous to the war they were generally conceded to be the ablest officers of that service; both were known to have been the classmates of Jefferson Davis and his intimate friends. In their first campaigns, both were adjudged, by the hot and impulsive temper of the time, to have committed gross and signal failure. Neither had many apologists. Johnston was declared an imbecile--a mere martinet, without any of the qualities of true generalship; and Lee was pronounced incompetent for higher duties than the clerical performances of the War Office.