The Convention of North Carolina having vested in the Government of the Confederate States jurisdiction over the Arsenal and grounds at Fayetteville, all the rifle works or machinery recently at Harper’s Ferry have been or is being removed to Fayetteville, where the manufacture and alteration of arms will be carried on. The Richmond Dispatch says a number of workmen have arrived in that city on their way to Fayetteville.
This will prove quite an important accession to the business of Fayetteville, and will be the means, we hope, of aiding and hastening the completion of the railroads to and from the Coal Fields on Deep River. An immense quantity of superior coal lies embedded in the earth only 40 miles from Fayetteville, and there, have been no facilities for transporting it to market until recently, and now to only a limited extent. The railroad from Fayetteville to these coal fields is nearly completed. $200,000 was appropriated by the last Legislature to equip the road, and why the money has not been advanced for that purpose we do not know. Certainly the State could not spend $200,000 for a more useful purpose in fact, it would be the same as spending that much to arm the State.
A large amount of coal has heretofore been brought into Virginia and North Carolina from Pennsylvania. That is stopped now; but with a connecting road between the coal fields in Chatham and the N. C Railroad, coal enough could be had to supply a dozen States. The whole southern Confederacy is interested in this matter.
The Western Democrat, Charlotte, NC