Show A REBELS REASONS fort boil DESERTING the chattanooga gazelle says a 1 ichel deserter lately gave gave the foil following v ing leas son sons for forsaking 1 jeff davis D L V ia confederacy 1 I have been in the rebel army for nearly three years and when I 1 hitt entered the arni army y tire confederacy was composed off fifteen iReen states slates or at least I 1 was made to believe so well at the end of the first years war we could claim but thirteen states stales at the end of the second years war but nine and now wo we cant claim a single whole state and we can only claim clai m parly of six hix states slates alabama flori florida d a georgia south carolina north nort i carolina and virginia 0 I 1 tims thus we have lost more inore than thirds of the ori original b inal southern confederacy this is not the sum total of our loss either for we ive have lost equally as heavy in men money and credit as wo mra have in territory our troubles are arc increased every day for wo we have lost all the country depended on to supply our army with rations when we yielded the mississippi river all the fine fino texas beef cattle were cut off this is an insupportable loss to the tennessee and southern kentucky were our depend dependence ance fur for much of our corn wheat and bacon to say nothing 0 of horses for cavalry this was a great loss east tennessee furnished us nitro arid and coal it too is pone gone I 1 and our armies are now forced back into the poorest parts of the south where it is impossible to supply either food or raiment for any length of time this shows that the chance for southern Sou thein independence is quite slim and I 1 saw it way was folly to be fighting always without any hope liepe of gaining the day or even benefiting our ourselves tile the war would stop right away if it was not for the bi big t men or of the south they know bs be hung 0 if caught 0 and they will keep up the war just as 1 long ong as they can |