done soon - at once - to restore public confidence and reasure our people that everything is done for them at Richmond that can be. We have nearly forty regiments in the Confederate service, and but very few of them in North Carolina. Could not a portion of them or others in their place be spared for our defense? I write you in haste, shortly just in earnest, and beg you to consider our critical situation in this State, both on eastern and western border. I am here as an adviser and aide to the Governor, and am in a position to know fully the state of public opinion. I can assure you there is great uneasiness for the future, as well as much complaint against the past. I indulge in neither, but write you as a friend, knowing fully what I say.

Truly and sincerely, yours,

D. M. BARRINGER.

[9.]

SPECIAL ORDERS,
AJDT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE, No. 37.
Richmond, February 14, 1862.

* * * * * *

XIV. The Fifty-seventh Regiment Virginia Volunteers, under Colonel Lewis A. Armistead, will proceed without delay to Suffolk, Va., and report for duty to Major-General Huger, commanding Department of Norfolk.

By command of the Secretary of War:

JNO. WITHERS,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

[9.]

RALEIGH, February 15, 1862.

J.. BENJAMIN,

Secretary of War:

There is the greatest demand on me for arms. Can I have those manufactured at Fayetteville Arsenal; also 100 rifles? They shall be returned or accounted for. Answer quick.

HENRY T. CLARK.

[9.]

RICHMOND, Februray 15, 1862.

Major General J. B. MAGRUDER,

Yortkown, Va.:

SIR: The War Department finds it necessary to impress slaves and free negroes to extend and complete the fortifications in the Peninsula. You will therefore call upon the citizens of Dinwiddie County, by direction of the Secretary of War, to send forthwith one-half of their male slaves between the ages of sixteen and fifty to execute this work on the Peninsula. The negroes will be paid for at the rate of $10 per month, and will receive an ample supply of provisions, the money to be paid by the Engineer Department to their masters promptly at the places where they mary work. Payment will be made personally to the free negroes or to such agenst as may be legally authorized by them, the cost of transportation to be paid by the Government. The sheriffs of the counties will collect the free negroes and turn them over to the Government agent at any place in the county designated by the latter, and a fair compensation will be allowed the sheriff by the Engineer