Early in January, an urgent and most pressing appeal was made for Lee's army; and the people, most of whom knew not where they would get bread for their children in three months' time, responded nobly, as they had always done to any call for "the soldiers." Few were the hearts in any part of the land that did not thrill at the thought that those who were fighting; for us were in want of food. From the humble cabin on the hill-side, where the old brown spinning-wheel and the rude loom were the only breastworks against starvation, up through all grades of life, there were none who did not feel a deep and tender, almost heartbreaking solicitude for our noble soldiers. For them the last barrel of flour was divided, the last luxury in homes that had once abounded was cheerfully surrendered. Every available resource was taxed, every expedient of domestic economy was put in practice--as indeed had been done all along; but our people went to work even yet with fresh zeal. I speak now of Central North-Carolina, where many families of the highest respectability and refinement lived for months on corn-bread, sorghum, and peas; where meat was seldom on the table, tea and coffee never; where dried apples and peaches were a luxury; where children went barefoot through the winter, and ladies made their own shoes, and wove their own homespuns; where the carpets were cut up into blankets, and window-curtains and sheets were torn up for hospital uses; where soldiers' socks were knit day and night, while for home service clothes were twice turned, and patches were patched again; and all this continually, and with an energy and a cheerfulness that may well be called _heroic_. There were localities in the State where a few rich planters boasted of having "never felt the war;" there were ladies whose wardrobes encouraged the blockade-runners, and whose tables were still heaped with all the luxuries they had ever known. There were such doubtless in every State in the Confederacy. I speak not now of these, but of the great body of our citizens--the _middle_ class as to fortune, generally the _highest_ as to cultivation and intelligence--_these_ were the people who denied themselves and their little ones, that they might be able to send relief to the gallant men who lay in the trenches before Petersburgh, and were even then living on crackers and parched corn.