The Uprising in the West--Salt manufacture — the Conscript law.
Ball Knob, Giles Co., Va., Sept. 6.
I must write a short letter, as your paper is scarce and mine scarcer.
On my way to this place, yesterday, I met about fifty volunteers, on foot, and some barefooted, all the way from Jackson county, Va., which is on the Ohio river, on their way to join Gen. Floyd; and you will be glad to hear that eight hundred more, they say, are coming from the same county to join our forces.
Some were armed with old Virginia rifles and some with shot guns.
All looked cheerful, and seemed to breathe free and stand erect, like freemen released from bondage.--They say the West is rising, and thousands are hemmed in by the few traitors and Yankees that infest the country.
Open the way and they will come.
Salt, salt, is all the cry here.
I left the Washington county Salt Works a few days since and was surprised to learn that four of the Southern States had made contracts to manufacture salt for their people, and that Virginia had no works, nor any prospect of supplying her people Georgia had erected works, and is now furnishing to her people large quantities of salt.
She, long since, made a contract at a bonus of fifty cents per bushel to the owners of the works for all the salt she may make during the war, not exceeding three hundred thousand bushels per annum.
I saw hundreds of bags already filled, containing one bushel each intended for the wives of the soldiers.
Old Rip Van Winkle (North Carolina) had a similar contract, (except that she paid seventy five cents instead of fifty cents,) and was also manufacturing in fine style for her poor citizens.
Tennessee was fast erecting works, and Alabama will commence in a few days.
The city of Richmond has contracted for twelve thousand bushels, one thousand to be delivered every month.
Half of these works were sold for $450,000, and bought by a half Yankee and half Virginia Yankee company.
They profess to sell the salt at one dollar per bushel, but you can buy so little that it is not worth going after.
If you drive two horses to your wagon you can buy two bushels or a bushel for each horse you drive, and yet, by some means, you can buy from professed outsiders a large quantity, provided you will pay from $10 to $12 per bushel for it. I saw a woman who had come fifty miles, riding one of the wagon horses, and driving the wagon she could only get two bushels of salt.
Her husband and son were in the army, so she had to act in their places.
The question is daily asked, ‘"What will the Legislature do on the salt question?"’ From what they have done, I should say they will do nothing, except make long speeches, read long extracts from Grotins, Puffendof, Vatell, &c., to show that the Legislature have no right to buy salt works, or do anything that prevents actual suffering by the people.
I would close, but I must tell you of a little scene I witnessed yesterday On my way from Ball Knob to the Yellow Sulphur Springs, in Montgomery county, with three other gentlemen in the back, we met, about a half mile from Blacksburg, a woman on horseback with a child in her arms, and as she passed us one of the gentlemen remarked that he never saw such feet to a woman in his life.
Some one replied that women in rocky soil always had large feet.
By this time we saw three troopers riding swiftly by, and soon wheel in front of the woman and halt.
We stopped and waited until they came up, when, at a glance, we discovered the beard on her face, and saw it was a man in disguise.
They took him to Blacksburg, and he owned up that he was disguised so that he might pass the guard at that place, who have in custody some conscripts.
He said he was bound to Giles county to see his brother.
As he passed through town he pretended to open his bosom and suckle the baby.
His name is Adams, from the lower part of Montgomery county, about five miles from Allegheny Springs, and is no doubt a deserter.
He was taken in custody by the guard, and will be sent to Christiansburg.
The Conscript law is not half executed in this section.
I have been at the different Springs, where I saw men from all the States, who had left home to avoid the Conscript act; and unless the idea of Senator Wigfall is carried out, and all men from all the States made to show that they are not conscripts, thousands will evade the law. In Richmond there are more than two thousand conscripts not enrolled.
Accomack. 