er howitzers and 6-pounder smooth bores be recast into
12-pounder Napoleons, 10-pounder Parrott guns, and 3-inch rifle cannon.
He wants four 12-pounder Napoleons sent him immediately, for a _special
purpose_. _His next battle will be principally with artillery._

Gov. Vance sends a letter, referring to an order of the government that
all cotton not removed west of the Weldon and Williamsburg Railroad, by
the 16th instant, is to be destroyed. He says his State is purchasing
15,000 to 20,000 bales, to establish a credit in Europe, and asks that
the Confederate Government authorities will respect the cotton designed
for this purpose. He says he will destroy it himself, when the enemy
approaches. He says, moreover, that the order will have an unhappy
effect; that many of the people have already lost their slaves, grain,
etc. from the inroads of the enemy, and have nothing to live on but
their cotton. If it remains where it is, how can they subsist on it
without selling it to the enemy? And that would be treason, pretty
nearly. But why does the government issue such an order in North
Carolina, when the government itself is selling, not destroying, the
cotton of Mississippi?

The President of the Central Railroad says that Messrs. Haxhall,
Crenshaw & Co., who have the gigantic contract with the government to
furnish flour, and who have a preference of transportation by the
contract, are blocking up their depots, and fail to remove the grain.
They keep whole trains waiting for days to be unladen; and thus hundreds
of thousands of bushels, intended for other mills and the people are
delayed, and the price kept up to the detriment of the community. Thus
it is that the government contractors are aiding and abetting the
extortioners. And for this reason large amounts of grain may fall into
the hands of the enemy.

DECEMBER 9TH.--W----l, another of Provost Marshal Griswold's policemen,
has arrived in Washington. I never doubted he was secretly in the Yankee
service here, where many of his fellows still remain, betraying the hand
that feeds them. Gen. Winder and the late Secretaries of War must be
responsible for all the injury they may inflict upon the country.

Yesterday, the President received a letter from a gentleman well known
to him, asserting that if Mississippi and Alabama be overrun by the
enemy, a large proportion of the people of those States will certainly
submit to the Government of the United States. The President