"To the People of Alabama!" General Orders No. 9, 1864 Broadside. One page, 9" x 14.5", printed document, Montgomery, March ...

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"To the People of Alabama!" General Orders No. 9, 1864 Broadside. One page, 9" x 14.5", printed document, Montgomery, March 3, 1865, moderately foxed and slightly chipped along the edges, with old fold creases, otherwise very good. In an effort to mobilize troops for a threatened invasion "from the north, on the south, and on the west" Alabama Governor T. H. Watts issues a call for "All men and boys, who belong to the 1st class "County Reserves" who are not, by the laws of this State, compelled to do military service...and who are willing to volunteer for the defense of their homes, their mothers, their wives, their daughters and their sisters, are directed to report to the commandant of the 'State Militia'". At this stage of the war it is obvious that Alabama is drawing upon their last resort of manpower considering that the 1st class classification consisted of "boys between 16 and 17 years old and men between 50 and 60 years of age". Though the irony was probably lost on Governor Watts, he repeated uses the threat of slavery to goad his fellow citizens to action: "We must either become slaves to Yankee masters...subjecting us and our children and our children's children to a slavery worse than Egyptian bondage...etc.". A rare document concerning the poor state of the Confederate army in the waning days of the war.