He was loved, respected, admired; yea, almost worshipped, by his troops. I do not believe there was a soldier in his army but would gladly have died … - Samuel R. Watkins

A law was made... allowing every person who owned twenty negroes to go home. It gave us the blues; we wanted twenty negroes. Negro property suddenly became very valuable, and there was raised the howl of "rich man's war, poor man's fight." The glory of the war, the glory of the South, the glory and the pride of our volunteers had no charms for the conscript.

America has no north, no south, no east, no west; the sun rises over the hills and sets over the mountains, the compass just points up and down, and we can laugh now at the absurd notion of there being a north and a south. ... We are one and undivided.

War had become a reality; they were tired of it. A law had been passed... called the conscript act. ... From this time on till the end of the war, a soldier was simply a machine, a conscript. ... All our pride and valor had gone, and we were sick of war and the Southern Confederacy.