sary of subsistence of Newport News, who informed him that he sent 40,000 rations of beef. Great fear is manifested because of the rumored coming of our gunboats. All Government material at Newport News is ready to be moved at a moment's warning. The usual fleet is in the river.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

C. H. CAUSEY,

Captain, C. S. Army.

HOOKERTON, N. C., April 28, 1863-9 p. m.

Major General, D. H. HILL:

GENERAL: Yours of 6.15 p. m. is just received. I will be ready, but I am very doubtful of their coming to Goldsborough if they say they are coming; though if this be a demonstration, and they have sent their re-enforcements back from Washington, I know not where the real attack can be. Unless General Longstreet has more hope of doing something at Suffolk than I have, I wish him back on the railroad. I hope the commissary will the ready for us at Kinston when we come, for the commissariat question is my great bother.

Yours, very truly,

J. J. PETTIGREW,

Brigadier-General.

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, NORTH CAROLINA,

Raleigh, April 28, 1863.

Honorable JAMES A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War:

SIR: From the best information to be obtained it seems now pretty certain that the enemy has abandoned further attempts upon Charleston and will direct his attention principally to the invasion of North Carolina during this season. I desire to say that coast on North Carolina is poorly defended indeed. The Roanoke, the Tar, and the Neuse, embracing the richest corn-growing of the Tar, and the Neuse, embracing the richest corn-growing region of the State, upon which the army of General Lee has been subsisting for months, have no heavy artillery for their defense. The attack on Washington recently failed through the defect of artillery and the very alarming inferiority of the ammunition. I very much fear that region will not be planted, so disheartening is the prospect of defense. One-fight of the care taken, in rendering Charleston impregnable would be well bestowed in strengthening the defenses of Wilmington, which are now confessedly weak. It is a point equally important in a military view in every respect, and call as loudly for the protection of the Government, and yet nearly al the heavy guns of the Confederacy seem to have been sent to Charleston, and other points are left to take the chances. An attack upon Wilmington by half of the number of iron-clads which assaulted Charleston would be equivalent to the capture of the city. Can nothing be done to strengthen that point?

From Roanoke Island to the late siege of Washington the history of the war has been a succession of calamities in North Carolina which none but the ungenerous and untruthful can charge to a want of bravery and patient endurance on the part of her people. I shall not pretend to say that our defense is intentionally neglected, but that it is very poorly provided for is a fact too patent to deny, and it can be better provided