soldier--two qualifications which some of our Northern brethren can not admit as consistent or admirable in one and the same true character, but which together constituted the strongest claim upon the confidence and affection of North-Carolina. Governor Vance's career from the first was marked by devotion to the people who had distinguished him, and by a determination to do his duty to _them_ at all hazards. This is not the place, nor have I the material for such a display of Governor Vance's course of action as would do him deserved justice; but this I may say, that his private correspondence, if ever it shall be published, will endear him still more to the State which he loved, and to the best of his ability served. His employment of a blockade-runner to bring in clothing for the North-Carolina troops was a noble idea, and proved a brilliant success.[1] If he had done nothing else in his official career to prove himself worthy to be our Governor, this alone would be sufficient. It matters but little as to the amount, great or small, of Confederate money spent in this service. It is all gone now; but the substantial and incalculable good that resulted at the time from this expenditure, can neither be disputed nor forgotten. For two years his swift-sailing vessels, especially the A.D. Vance, escaped the blockaders, and steamed regularly in and out of the port of Wilmington, followed by the prayers and anxieties of our whole people. "The Advance is in!" was a signal for congratulations in every town in the State; for we knew that another precious cargo was safe, of shoes, and blankets, and cloth, and medicines, and cards. And so it was that when other brave men went barefoot and ill-clad through the winter storms of Virginia, our own North Carolina boys were well supplied, and their wives and little ones at home were clothed, thanks to our Governor and to our God. I have seen tears of thankfulness running down the cheeks of our soldiers' wives on receiving a pair of these cards, by which alone they were to clothe and procure bread for themselves and their children. And they never failed to express their sense of what they owed to their Governor. "God bless him!" they would cry, "for thinking of it. And God _will_ bless him." One striking evidence of the fullness and efficiency of these supplies I can not refrain from giving, as it occurred at the close of the war, when our resources, it might be supposed, were utterly exhausted. It will also serve to show what manner of man Governor Vance was, in more ways than one.