en. Lee writes that his beeves are so poor the soldiers
won't eat the meat. He asks the government to send him salt meat.

From Northern sources we learn that Arkansas Post has fallen, and that
we have lost from 5000 to 7000 men there. If this be true, our men must
have been placed in a man-trap, as at Roanoke Island.

Mr. Perkins, in Congress, has informed the country that Mr. Memminger,
the Secretary of the Treasury, has hitherto opposed and defeated the
proposition that the government buy all the cotton. Mr. M. should never
have been appointed. He is headstrong, haughty, and tyrannical when he
imagines he is dealing with inferiors, and he deems himself superior to
the rest of mankind. But he is no Carolinian by birth or descent.

We see accounts of public meetings in New Jersey, wherein the government
at Washington is fiercely denounced, and peace demanded, regardless of
consequences. Some of the speakers openly predicted that the war would
spread into the North, if not terminated at once, and in that event, the
emancipationists would have foes to fight elsewhere than in the South.
Among the participants I recognize the names of men whom I met in
convention at Trenton in 1860. They clamor for the "Union as it was, the
Constitution as it is," adopting the motto of my paper, the "_Southern
Monitor_," the office of which was sacked in Philadelphia in April,
1861. Our government will never agree to anything short of independence.
President Davis will be found inflexible on that point.

There was a rumor yesterday that France had recognized us. The news of
the disaster of Burnside at Fredericksburg having certainly been deemed
very important in Europe. But France has not yet acted in our behalf. We
all pray for the Emperor's intervention. We suffer much, and but little
progress is made in conscription. Nearly all our resources are in the
field. Another year of war, and ----!

JANUARY 21ST.--Last night the rain fell in torrents, and to-day there is
a violent storm of wind from the N. W. This may put an end, for a
season, to campaigning on land, and the enemy's fleet at sea may be
dispersed. Providence may thus intervene in our behalf.

It is feared that we have met with a serious blow in Arkansas, but it is
not generally believed that so many (5000 to 7000 men) surrendered, as
is stated in the Northern papers. Gen. Holmes is responsible for the
mishap.

Conscription drags its slow length along. It is not yet adding m