"Still, I am not out of heart, for, as you know, I am of a buoyant and hopeful temperament. Things may come round yet. General Lee is _a great man_, and has the remnant of the best army on earth, bleeding, torn, and overpowered though it be. Saturday night may yet come to all of our troubles, and be followed by the blessed hours of rest. God grant it! 'Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief' in final liberty and independence. I would fain be doing. How can I help to win the victory? What can I do? How shall I guide this suffering and much-oppressed Israel that looks to me through the tangled and bloody pathway wherein our lines have fallen? Duty called me to resist to the utmost the disruption of the Union. Duty calls me now to stand by the new union, 'to the last gasp with truth and loyalty.' This is my consolation. The beginning was bad: I had no hand in it. Should the end be bad, I shall, with God's help, be equally blameless. "I hope when you come down, you will give yourself time to be with me a great deal. "I am, dear sir, very truly yours, "Z.B. Vance." The saddest forebodings of this letter, which would have been echoed by many a failing heart in the State, were soon to be realized. By January, 1865, there was very little room left for "belief" of any sort in the ultimate success of the Confederacy. All the necessaries of life were scarce, and were held at fabulous and still increasing prices. The great freshet of January 10th, which washed low grounds, carried off fences, bridges, mills, and tore up railroads all through the central part of the State, at once doubled the price of corn and flour. Two destructive fires in the same month, which consumed great quantities of government stores at Charlotte and at Salisbury, added materially to the general gloom and depression. The very elements seemed to have enlisted against us. And soon, with no great surplus of food from the wants of her home population, North-Carolina found herself called upon to furnish supplies for two armies.