Alton Telegraph, Alton, IL - Oct. 30, 1863 East Tennessee Immediately after his occupation of Knoxville, Gen. Burnside organized a National Guard, to embrace all the loyal men of East Tennessee. We are gratified to learn that the ranks are being rapidly filled up. A new United States artillery regiment is being formed at Knoxville, and six hundred men at once joined it. If we can hold East Tennessee, as we feel certain that we can, we may obtain twenty thousand excellent soldiers from which is large able bodied population left, in ( ) of the rebel conscription, and that is a source of profound surprise to see the country so full of wealth in the form of agricultural produce. The corn crop is enormous. The wheat crop was large, but not excellent in quality. The rebel army had not time to seize all this wealth. Had our entrance been deferred thirty days longer, sufficient subsistence would have been seized in East Tennessee to maintain a rebel army of 100,000 men for nine months. Cattle and sheep are said to be by no means scarce. The farmers have made out to secreto (sic) more or less of their live stock from the claws of the rebel quartermasters. We suspect that the farmers asked such an enormous price for their cattle in Confederate script, that the quartermasters concluded that they could not afford to buy. To steal all the cattle in East Tennessee was considered bad policy, for the rebels desired to retain that country as a beef growing district.