Memoir of John C. Wright, p. 84:

He [Hindman] was also engaged in gathering into camps at Ft. Smith the enrolled conscripts trying to fit them, by discipline and drill, for military service; an effort which in the main proved a failure. In the meantime he was collecing at the same place, Commissary and Quartermaster’s stores, hauled by wagon trains from Texas.

This may be an appropriate place for me to express my opinion of the “Conscript Law.” In many respects it was a good law and doubtless a necessity, but it had many evils connected with its enforcement and to all good soldiers, odious. There were thousands (p.83) of young men who as they attained the military age, were eager to volunteer and would have done so had there been no such law, yet the law made them “conscripts,” a term of reproach. The same is true of many with families, who did not think it necessary for them to volunteer at the beginning, but were ready to go whenever their services were needed. Such men resented being regarded as conscripts. There was another class and unfortunately rather numerous, who with as much at stake and generally more than the majority in the service, loved the ease and comfort of home more than country and feared the dangers of the battlefield more than the reproach of their neighbors. Such frequently made good soldiers when forced into the service. A few of this class were shrewd enough to evade the service to the end, but with few exceptions, they lost standing. Now comes the genuine “conscript”; the man for whom the law was intended; men devoid of patriotism; men who had nothing to lose, not even character; selfish men, who reasoned that should the South fail, as they hoped it would, they would be in position to make terms with the victors. A very large proportion of the real conscripts were too ignorant to know or to care anything about patriotism or principle and were solidly indifferent, so long as left undisturbed in the animal existence.

With a man like Hindman to discipline and control them and a man like Shelby to make them fight, they would in time have made (p.84) good soldiers, but under the lax administrations of Holmes and Price and Kirby Smith, they were a nuisance and the army more effective without them. Another consideration, not to be forgotten: They would have been a dangerous element left unguarded, amongst the women and children in the country. It is true that many of them deserted and went back to their homes, but were force to keep in hiding from the conscript officers and provost guards and they could do but little harm. This applies only to that part of the country occupied by the enemy. Where unrestrained by fear of the Confederate authorities they were a terror and a scourge, the like of whom has never been known in an age of civilization.