[Correspondence of the Daily Dispatch.]
Rusking to arms — effect of the late reverses — rejoicings over the Virginia — a word about sugar and molasses, &c. Montgomery, Ala., March 11, 1862.
To arms, to arms!
is the cry now in every city, village, county, neighborhood, and at every fireside, and victory or death the motto of every true man in these States.
You cannot conceive the enthusiasm and excitement which has followed the late defeats.
Yesterday I came to this place from Georgia, and on the train was a company whose Captain is a Methodist clergyman, whose First Lieutenant is a Baptist preacher, and nearly every member a plous man. The Captain formed his company in church, after delivering an eloquent sermon.
A man from the hills of Georgia said to me. ‘"Since they whipped us so in Tennessee, all of us in my country are volunteering.
I have made up my mind that death is better than subjugation, and have bid farewell to my wife and seven little ones, and am in for the war."’ Another good effect of those reverses is, that they have come at the right time to make the planters plant corn instead of cotton.
Nothing else could have forced them to this.
To-day the streets are wild with rejoicings over the fight at Newport News.
May this mighty victory be but the beginning of a series of glorious Confederate triumpirs on the water.
I have been amazed to see the vast quantities of barrels of molasses and sugar in front of almost every grocery, and upon inquiry, found out that now these articles are being brought from New Orleans to Mobile by rail, and thence by boat to this place.
Molasses here is worth 50 cents, and first-rate coffee sugar 10 cents. 