Clothing and shoes for the army.
We cannot avoid again recurring to this subject. It is the most important one that can at present engage the attention, not only of Congress and the War Department, but of the whole country. If our troops can be properly clad, properly fed, and properly clothed, we may defy the enemy to do his worst. For the article of food we learn that ample provision has been made. For the article of shoes we observe that Congress has passed a law to organize a corps of 2,000 shoemakers for the public service. They are enough, if it be possible to procure leather, which we believe it is. It is here, especially, that the patriotism of the men and women of the country might come in as a powerful aid to the Government. Let everybody who has a scrap of leather that can by exercising the most severe self-denial, devote it to the service of the country. Let nobody who has leather part with it to any body but an agent of the Government. Let everybody who has no leather, but has money, contribute as much as can be spared by any possible means, to purchase leather. Let it be bought if possible wherever it exists, even from speculators, at any price however exorbitant. Send all the old shoes you may have and can spare, to be half-soled for the troops Rake and scrape together every scrap of leather you can possibly lay your hands on for this holy purpose. If the whole people will set to work, the army can be shod and kept in shoes, and we feel assured that they will set to work in right good earnest.So in the way of clothing and blankets.--Send everything you can possibly spare. Get oznaburgs, where you have no blankets to spare, sew the pieces together, and stuff them with cotton. Learn to sleep under as few blankets as possible, that you may send the overplus to the soldiers.
Remember, men and women of the Confederate States, the army of Virginia is standing guard over you, your homes, and your liberties, no matter in what part of the country you may be. If once that army be forced to leave the field, from the want of clothes to keep off the piercing blasts, and cold rains, and driving snows of winter, the wave of invasion will sweep over the whole land, and bury you underneath it. And winter is rapidly approaching. Our men cannot stand guard or march ever the frozen ground without warm clothing, socks, and shoes. The cold will prove more terrible than the bayonets of the Yankees. They will be compelled to leave the field if they have not these comforts. And are you not proud of that army? It has won for you already a name which no people ever had at the commencement of a national career. It has fought battles and gained victories sufficient to have conferred undying lustre on any people that ever existed. It has protected you in the hour of need. But for its courage and devotion you would be at this moment, the subjects of the most hateful tyranny, and the most odious tyrant that the world ever beheld. You would be the subjects of the Yankee nation, and of Abraham Lincoln. Do you not owe them, then, a debt of gratitude which the labor of a long life would not be too much to extinguish?
But they ask of you in return only to give them the means of serving you still farther. They want only clothes to face the weather, and they will still be ready to light for you to the last drop of their blood as they have fought for you hitherto. You are not expected to do all, but to do the best you can. The Government will do the best it can, but the crisis is too serious to be left altogether to the Government. It wants help. Come forward and lend it as you have done heretofore. And there is no time to lose. Come quickly — come at once — or it may be too late. In the high country about Winchester, the nights are already extremely cool. The frosts have began to fall. The soldier has already begun to suffer.
