with his command is at Decatur or vicinity. Lee with three brigades, 4,000, near to the railroad at Montevallo. Forest with his command at Tupelo. I am prepared to co-operate with you in any way practicable with a due regard to the safety of the special interests confided to me. I have telegraphed you. Let me hear from you fully.*

Respectfully, &c.,

L. POLK.

[38.]

WESOBULGA, Randolph COUNTY, ALA.,

May 6, 1864.

His Excellency JEFFERSON DAVIS,

President of the Confederate States:

The undersigned, citizens and slave-holders of the county of Randolph and State of Alabama, would respectfully represent to Your Excellency that Colonel Blount, impressing agent of slaves statined at Mobile, Ala., has recently ordered an impressment of 33 1/3 per cent. of all the able-bodied slaves of the county, when in adjoining counties, where the slave population is greater, only ; form 5 to 10 per cent. have been taken. This we think to be unjust and not in accordance with the intentions of the act. We think that a uniform rate should be levied in the whole State, or so much of it as is now within our lines, so that the burden should fall uniformly on all; but he appears to order an arbitrary number from each county without reference to the number of slaves within the county. He thus levies a percentage which is uniform in the county, but does not bear any proportion to the levies in adjoining couties. He also counts in all the women that are within the ages of seventeen to fifty, and takes one-third of the total number of men between the ages of seventeen and fifty. Randolph is a poor and mountainous county, with the largest population of any in the State. There are only 300 negroes (women and men) within the prescribed ages in the county, and he takes 100. Seventy-five per cent. of the white males are now in the service, leaving the great majority of their wives and children to be supported by the remainder. There are numbers of widows and orphans of the soldiers who have perished by the casualties of war to be also supported by public funds. The county does not in ordinary times produce more than a sufficiency of food for its population. Last year there was a deficit of over 40,000 bushels of corn, about one-half of which has been provided from the tax-in-kind; the balance has to be purchased in the canebrake, transported a distance of 125 miles on railroad, and hauled thence in wagons from thirty to fifty miles to reach the various points of distribution in the county. There are now on the rolls of the probate court 1,600 indigent families to be supported. They average five to each family, making a grand total of 8,000 persons. Deaths from starvation have absolutely occurred, notwithstanding the utmost efforts that we have been able to make, and now many of the women and children are seeking and feeding upon the bran from the mills. Women riots have taken place in several parts of the county, in which Government wheat and corn have been seized to prevent starvation of Themselves and families, and where it will end, unless relief is afforded, we cannot tell.

We have entered into these details that Your Excellency may see the deplorable condition of things in this county and aid us if in your power and the exigencies of the service permit. To take the negroes

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* For probable answer, see VOL. XXXVIII, Part IV, p. 680.

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