encouraging their men, just as they reduced Arkansas Point to get up heart for Vicksburg. At any rate, we ought to spare no effort and lose not time in getting ready. I have referred the matter of Cogdell's company to General Daniel.

With great respect,

D. H. HILL,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS,
Goldsborough, N. C., February 25, 1863.

The undersigned has been placed in charge of the troops in North Carolina. In assuming command he would address a few words of exhortation to his forces:

Soldiers! Your brutal and malignant enemy is putting fort efforts unexampled in the history of the world. Having failed to subjugate you, he is maddened with the thirst for vengeance, and is pushing forward his foreign mercenaries to plunder your property and lay waste your homes. But his marauding hosts have been so often beaten and baffled that they are now discouraged and demoralized. Should you be able to check them every where for the next sixty days the 300,000 whose time expires in May will not re-enlist, and the war will end before July. Should the scoundrels, however, gain a single substantial success at any one point the war will be prolonged during the entire administration of Lincoln. It becomes a solemn duty then to labor and fight during the next two months as we have never done before. We must make the war unpopular with the mercenary vandals of the North by harassing and annoying them. We must cut down to 6 feet by 2 the dimensions of the farms which these plunderers propose to appropriate. You will have to endure more hardships and to fight more desperate battles than you would have done were your ranks properly filled. Our cities, towns, and villages are full of young and able-bodied skulkers, wearing the semblance of men, who have dodged from the battle-field under the provisions of the exemption bill. The scorn of the fair sex and the contempt of all honorable men have not been able to drive these cowardly miscreants into the ranks, so long as they can fatten upon the miseries of the country and shelter their worthless carcasses from Yankee bullets; but they are insensible to shame. But a day of retribution waits these abortions of humanity. Their own descendants will execrate their memory when the finger of scorn is pointed and the taunt is uttered, "He is the son, or grandson, or great-grandson of an exempt and extortioner." Do your fully duty, soldiers, and leave these poltroons and villains to the execration of posterity.

All commanding officers are hereby joined to furnish the names of officers and men who distinguish themselves in pitched battles and skirmishers. Those so distinguishing themselves will be recommended for promotion and their names published in the principal papers of their respective States.

The infantry have to bear the brunt of every battle and to endure special hardships in every campaign. the post of danger and of suffering is the post of honor. If our liberty be ever won it will be due mainly to the indomitable pluck and sturdy endurance of our heroic infantry.

The Confederate artillery has behaved most nobly, and the wonder is that with inferior guns and ammunition it has been able to cope successfully with the splendid armament of the enemy. It has been a mistake, however, to contend with the Yankee artillery. Reserve your fire, as at Fredericksburg, for the masses of infantry, and do not with