Confederate president Jefferson Davis signs the first Conscription Act in American history

President Jefferson Davis signed the bill for compulsory military service he had requested three weeks before.  The first conscription act in the history of the United States, it required service from any man between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five and extended the current enlistments in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States to three years.  Further amendments protected certain occupations, some slaveowners, and those who hired substitutes. The age range was extended to forty-five within six months.  (By John Osborne)