Mr. Locke, chief commissary of Georgia, wrote:

I pray you, major, to put every agency in motion that you can to send cattle without a moment's delay toward the Georgia borders. The troops in Charleston are in great extremity. We look alone to you for cattle; those in Georgia are exhausted.

Major Guerin, chief commissary of South Carolina, wrote:

We are almost entirely dependent on Florida, and it is of the last importance at this time that the troops here should be subsisted.

Again he says:

As it is, our situation is full of danger from want of meat, and extraordinary efforts are required to prevent disaster.

And on the 9th of October, he says:

We have now 40,000 troops and laborers to subsist. The supply of bacon on hand in the city is 20,000 pounds, and the cattle furnished by this State is not one-tenth of what is required. My anxieties and apprehensions, as you may suppose, are greatly excited.

Major Millen, of Savannah, on the 10th October, says:

I assure you, major, that the stock of bacon and beef for the armies of the Confederate States is now exhausted, and we must depend entirely upon what we may gather weekly. Starvation stares the army in the face; the handwriting is on the wall.

On the 26th of October, he says:

From the best information I have, the resources of food (meat) of both the Tennessee and Virginia armies are exhausted. This remark now applies with equal force to South Carolina and Georgia, and the army must henceforth depend upon the energy of the purchasing commissaries, through their daily or weekly collections. I have exhausted the beef-cattle and am now obliged to kill stock cattle.

From these you perceive that there is too much cause for the deep solicitude manifested by the writers. They should excite the fears and apprehensions of every lover of his country. Truly the responsibility upon us is great, when we are expected to feed these vast armies whether the producers will sell to us or not. The slightest reflection would teach any one that it is impossible to provide for such armies by impressments alone. The people must cheerfully yield their supplies or make up their minds to surrender their cause. It is their cause. It is not the cause of the Government. The Government is theirs. The army, the Government, you and I, and every one, and everything we have, are staked upon this contest. To fail is total and irretrievable ruin, universal confiscation of everything, and abject and ignominious submission and slavery to the most despicable and infamous race on earth. Whoever has any other thought but to fight on, at any cost of life and property, until we achieve our independence or all perish in the struggle, deserves to be the slave of such an enemy. But under the guidance of Providence our cause is safe in the hands of our army, provided we do our duty at home.

But Providence will not help a people who will not help themselves. Our enemies have no hope of conquering us by arms. Their only hope is that we will be untrue to ourselves, and in the blind pursuit of gain lose sight of our country, and thus suffer our army, and with it our cause, to perish. How stands the case? You know the resources of Tennessee are lost to us; the hog cholera and other causes have cut short the prospect in Georgia and other States. It is ascertained that the last year's crop of bacon is about exhausted, and