--The correspondent of the Mobile
Register, writing from
Orange Court-House, August 17th, furnishes the following:
‘
Gen. Lee's army is well rested again.
The ranks are filling up fast, and the men are ready for another trial whenever the Yanks feel inclined.
We are not half whipped yet, and don't intend to be. Keep the people up to the work in
Alabama and
Mississippi, and all will be right again.
Never say die; "there's life in the old land yet."
Gen. Lee is making every exertion to get back the thousands of officers and men who have so long been absent from the army.--Many of them are really sick and wounded, and unable to return; but most of them are "heroes of the
Peninsula," who did not relish their first and last battle, and have skulked ever since.
Conscript officers have failed to meet these cases.
Month after month regular surgeon's certificates come to their captains, and in this way they are screened from the punishment they so justly deserve.
The examining boards and surgeons at home do not seem to appreciate the necessity of these men being with their commands, because they can form no conception of the immense number absent — they only seeing those who come to one out of a thousand posts.
They are also too easy in their opinions as to when a man can perform military duty.
If they could only see what a great many emaciated and sick men are obliged to endure on their march, their minds would change very materially.
Over one-half of the army of Northern Virginia is absent.
Let the ladies take the advice of "
Illinois," and drive them away and back to their places.
We need every man of them.
Lincoln is organizing for the only campaign that has any shadow of a chance to take
Richmond, and we must have men to avert it. To meet this exigency I learn
General Lee will soon publish an order requiring all absentees able to travel, to report in person to their commands for examination.
Able-bodied men detailed with
Generals, Quartermasters, and Commissaries, as clerks, etc., are to be sent back, and disabled and deserving soldiers put in their places.
It is a pity these stout and healthy men, who have used every shift to keep out of the army, could not know in what perfect contempt they are held by the men who have done the fighting, and so far saved the country, while they have remained at home in luxury and ease.
Perhaps they are so lost to shame that it would not effect them.
Be it as it may, the "moss" policy has been tried long enough, and, as far as this army is concerned, rocks are to be resorted to, and the most severe punishment — even to death — will henceforth be used.
If a man will not fight for his country, he is not fit to enjoy the blessings of it, and the sooner the authorities "shuffle off his mortal coil," the better for him and his country.
’