from Suffolk. It is possible that it may make an effort from that direction to annoy you. He desires you also to be careful in having your rear protected by having the roads leading from the east of the swamp well observed and guarded.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

G. M. SORREL,

[18.] Assistant Adjutant-General.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DEPT. OF NORTH CAROLINA, Numbers 8.
Goldsborough, April 24, 1863.

The department commander returns his hearfelt thanks to the troops under his command for their courage in battle, patient endurance on long fatiguing marches in the cold and wet, for their vigilance on duty, and uniform good behavoir everywhere. Unlike the rescally Yankees, you have protected private property, and no depredations have been committed, except in a few instances by the Twenty-fifth North Carolina Regiment. It is to be hoped that this brave regiment will leave off his low Yankee practice, and will behave as well on the march as it has always done on the battle-field. Some twenty cavalrymen, under Lieutenant Beard, behaved badly in presence of the Yankees, and the same is charged against Captain Nichol's company of cavalry. All the rest of the troops behaved most handsomely. Soldiers! With forces inferior to the Yankees, you drove them into their rat holes in New Berne and Washington. You held the latter place in close siege for sixteen days. with light field guns you whipped the four gun-boats in the harbor at Washington, disabling two of them, and driving the poor poltroon Renshaw, U. S. Navy, under shelter of an island. With some half a dozen field pieces, you kept back nine gun-boats from coming to the relief of their afficted consorts. The relieving force of 7,000 men, you whipped so easily as to think the battle was but a skirmish, and were preparing for the real contest when you lerned that the foe had slipped off in the darkness of the night, blocking the road being him, so that a god or a sneaking exempt could not crawl through. If you failed to accomplish greater things, the fault was not yourds. How much better is it thus to deserve the thanks of the country by your courage and patience, than to skulk at home as the cowardly exempts do. Some of these poor dogs have hired substitutes, as though money could pay the service every man owes his country. Others claim to own twenty negroes, and with justice might claim to be masters of an infinite amount oc cowardice. Others are stuffy squires-bless their dignified souls. Others are warlike militia officers, and their regiments cannot dispence with such models of military skill and valor. And such noble regiments they have. Three field officers, four staff officers, ten captains, thirty lieutenants, and one private with a misery in his bowels. Some are pill and syringe gentlemen, and have done their share of killing at home. Some are kindly makind shoes for the army, and generously giving them to the poor soldiers, only asking two months' pay. Some are too sweet and delicate for anything but fancy duty; the sight of blood is unpleasant, and the roar of cannon shocks their sensibilities. When our independence is won, the most trifling soldier in the ranks will be more respected, as he is now more respectable than an army of these skulking exempts.

D. H. HILL,

[18.] Major-General.