A gentleman who left
Norfolk on Saturday last says the citizens there are suffering great privations.
He furnishes the Petersburg
Express with the following statement of the condition of things there:
All merchandize is stopped at
Old Point, where the vessels discharge cargo, and what little is allowed to proceed to
Norfolk has to be re-shipped and sent up to the city in small tugs, always under guard.
Country people are restricted to three pounds of coffee per week, a small quantity of sugar, salt, flour, bacon, etc. Every market cart which leaves the city is subjected to a strict search by the
Federal pickets at the corporate limits, and if an excess of any article named by the military authorities be found the whole is confiscated, the driver reprimanded, and, in some instances, ordered to the guard-house Confederate money is not allowed to be circulated; notes of
Virginia,
North Carolina, and other States of the
Confederacy, are very scarce, and at a discount of 40 per cent.
Gold and
silver is rapidly disappearing, the small supplies which the people had accumulated up to the period of evacuation having been almost entirely exhausted.
Those who have heretofore relied upon this resource can see bot little in store for them at an early day save utter destitution, if not actual starvation.
The laboring class of white people, of whom there were many Irish in
Norfolk, have been forced to leave the city, in consequence of the
Federal having placed blacks in their places.
Our informant states that all along the line of the canal rude shanties have been erected by these people.
Hitherto accustomed to comfortable homes, and all the necessary means of subsistence which honest toll could procure, they now eke out a precarious living by fishing, bunting, &c.
The Yankee authorities at
Norfolk have established a colony for blacks near that city, and immediately in rear of the
Cemetery.
They are not allowed to visit the city, nor to penetrate the rural districts.
Here to the number of 3,000 or more, they are living in pens, and upon means so scant that they are daily harassed by hunger.
Their condition is said to be terrible in the extreme, and the entire settlement presents a scene of the most squalid wretchedness.
Guards are placed in their front and rear to confine them to the narrow limits prescribed by their newly-found
friends and benefactors
All last week the
Yankee authorities were sending reinforcements to
Suffolk, and our informant witnessed a train of artillery nearly a quarter of a mile in length, which proceeded to
Portsmouth and disembarked for the town of
Suffolk.
They seem to be in constant apprehension of an attack; and it may be that a heavy force is only kept at
Suffolk to prevent the success of any assault the
Confederates may make.
It is rumored by many, however, that the enemy intend a forward movement from
Suffolk, after all things have been made ready for a demonstration.
