.

Thomas Jackson, Augusta, Ga., writes that he can prove the president of
the Southern Express Company, who recently obtained a passport to visit
Europe, really embarked for the United States, taking a large sum in
gold; that another of the same company (which is nothing more than a
branch of Adams's Express Company of New York) will leave soon with more
gold. He says this company has enough men detailed from the army, and
conscripts exempted, to make two regiments.

J. M. Williams writes from Morton, Miss., that his negroes have been
permitted to return to his plantation, near Baton Rouge, and place
themselves under his overseer. During their absence some ten or twelve
died. This is really wonderful policy on the part of the enemy--a policy
which, if persisted in, might ruin us. _Mr. Williams asks permission to
sell some fifty bales of cotton to the enemy for the support of his
slaves._ He says the enemy is getting all the cotton in that section of
country--and it may be inferred that all the planters are getting back
their slaves. The moment any relaxation occurs in the rigorous measures
of the enemy, that moment our planters cease to be united in resistance.

OCTOBER 4TH.--The major-quartermasters and the acting
quartermaster-generals (during the illness or absence of Gen. Lawton)
are buffeting the project some of us set on foot to obtain wood at cost,
$8, instead of paying the extortioners $40 per cord. All the wagons and
teams of Longstreet's corps are here idle, while the corps itself is
with Bragg--and the horses are fed by the government of course. These
wagons and teams might bring into the city thousands of cords of wood.
The quartermasters at first said there were no drivers; but I pointed
out the free Yankee negroes in the prisons, who beg employment. Now Col.
Cole, the quartermaster in charge of transportation, says there is a
prospect of getting teamsters--but that hauling should be done
exclusively for the army--and the quartermaster-general (acting)
indorses on the paper that if the Secretary will _designate the class of
clerks_ to be benefited, some little wood might be delivered them. This
concession was obtained, because the Secretary himself sent my _second_
paper to the quartermaster-general--the _first_ never having been seen
by him, having passed from the hands of the Assistant Secretary to the
file-tomb.

Another paper I addressed to the President, suggesting the opening of
government stores