evils of the service. They must be corrected of I fear the loss of our cause. Pardon me a single suggestion as to the remedy. Consolidate your regiments in the field. Place them in the Confederate Army. Force the supernumerary officers not specially marked for merit into your corps elite. Send some of peculiar merit to fill the important posts in the rear. Repeal all exemptions, and let other meritorious officers be sent home to organized and then command new companies to be raised from this class. Place these in the Confederate Army. The soldiers in the field will thus be thrown with their old companions in arms, and the new from will fight by the side of their friends from home. Take hold of the militia; organize it; make it your conscript arm. Offer to each of its members a limited furlough for every deserter he may arrest. I believe you can thus call into service the military strength of the nation. Let the men and officers who have been disabled in the field become your civil officers, your oversees, your quartermasters and commissaries in the rear. I believe there are this day in Mississippi alone a sufficient number of deserters, skulkers, idle officers, improper details, and useless exempts to give victory to any army to which they are sent. I have served since the first day of this war; am beyond conscript age; am partially disabled; but I will cheerfully resign my commission and once more seek the ranks with these men; but should it be my lot in any way to lead, I will place them where some acquaintance with the smell of powder will be added to their knowledge.

I beg leave to allude to one or two subjects disconnected with the Army. Our taxes are heavy, but I do not think unnecessarily so. The burthen is certainly an unusual one. Nothing should be done to make it odious to the citizen, and yet I fear some regulations are making it so. Those holding the 4 per cent. certificates complain that the Goves possible, discredits them. Fractions of hundreds cannot be paid with them. I saw a widow lady a few days since offer to pay her taxes of $1,271. 31 with a certificate of $1,300. The tax-gatherer refused to pay her the change of $28. 69. She then offered the whole certificate for the taxes. This was refused. This apparent injustice touched her far more than the amount of the taxes.

Again. Many of our planters have been able to raise but a small surplus. They have cheerfully sold the surplus to the Government and have been compelled to take certificates of indebtedness. The Government will not pay them and refuses to receive them in payment of taxes. The planter has no money, and his property must be sold. He throws the certificate first on the market, and they can be purchased in many places at a discount of 75 per cent. The people complain of their Government as oppressing them, not so much by what it requires as the manner of making the requisition and of its refusal to pay a class of its debts that were contracted for currency.

Again. Portions of this and other States have been repeatedly overrun by the foe. Scarcely half our planters have had the ability to till the soil.

In this and the northern tier of counties of this State sufficient food is not found for the home population. The tithers are being paid. Do not remove them from counties, else starvation will be literally thrust on our people. Sell the tithes to the county police (?). This would be an act not only of justice but of mercy.

Pardon this long letter. Your position gives you a voice in the correction of abuses, and I know your patriotism will prompt you to