Chapter XXI
The great crisis at hand.--The rage for speculation raises its head.-- Great battle of Fredericksburg.--The States called on for supplies.-- Randolph resigns as Brigadier-General.--South Carolina honor.--Loss at Fredericksburg.--Great contracts.--Lee's ammunition bad.-- Small-pox here.
DECEMBER 1ST, MONDAY.--There is a rumor to-day that we are upon the eve of a great battle on the Rappahannock. I doubt it not.
I am sorry to see that Col. McRae, a gallant officer, has resigned his commission, charging the President with partiality in appointing junior officers, and even his subordinates, brigadiers over his head. Nevertheless, he tenders his services to the Governor of his State, and will be made a general. But where will this end? I fear in an issue between the State and Confederate authorities.
The news from Europe is not encouraging. France is willing to interfere, and Russia is ready to participate in friendly mediation to stay the effusion of blood--but England seems afraid of giving offense to the United States. They refer to the then approaching elections in the North, and lay some stress on the anticipated change in public opinion. Popular opinion! What is it worth in the eyes of European powers? If it be of any value, and if the voice of the people should be allowed to determine such contests, why not leave it to a vote of the Southern people to decide under which government they will live? But why make such an appeal to monarchies, while the Republican or Democratic government of the North refuses to permit 8,000,000 of people to have the government they unanimously prefer? Can it be possible that the United States are ignorant of popular sentiment here? I fear so; I fear a few traitors in our midst contrive to deceive even the Government at Washington. Else why a prolongation of the war? They ought to know that, under almost any conceivable adverse circumstances, we can maintain the war twenty years. And if our lines should be everywhere broken, and our country overrun--it would require a half million soldiers to hold us down, and this would cost the United States $500,000,000 per annum.
God speed the day of peace! Our patriotism is mainly in the army and among the ladies of the South. The avarice and cupidity of the men at home, could only be excelled by ravenous wolves; and most of our sufferings are fully deserved. Where a people will not have mercy on one another, how can they expect mercy? They depreciate the Confederate notes by charging from $20 to $40 per bbl. for flour; $3.50 per bushel for meal; $2 per lb. for butter; $20 per cord for wood, etc. When we shall have peace, let the extortionists be remembered! let an indelible stigma be branded upon them.
A portion of the people look like vagabonds. We see men and women and children in the streets in dingy and dilapidated clothes; and some seem gaunt and pale with hunger--the speculators, and thieving quartermasters and commissaries only, looking sleek and comfortable. If this state of things continue a year or so longer, they will have their reward. There will be governmental bankruptcy, and all their gains will turn to dust and ashes, dust and ashes!
And I learn they are without shirts in the North--cotton being unattainable. A universal madness rules the hour! Why not throw aside the instruments of death, and exchange commodities with each other? Subjugation is an impossibility. Then why not strive for the possible and the good in the paths of peace? The Quakers are the wisest people, after all. I shall turn Quaker after this war, in one sense, and strive to convince the world that war is the worst remedy for evils ever invented--and man the most dangerous animal ever created.
DECEMBER 2D.--There was skirmishing this morning on the line of the Rappahannock. The Chief of Ordnance is ordering arms and ammunition to Gen. Pemberton, in Mississippi. This indicates a battle in the Southwest.
A writer in the London Times, who is from Nashville, Tenn., says the South is willing to go into Convention with the North, and be bound by its decisions. I doubt that.
But the Enquirer to-day contains a communication from T. E. Chambliss, not the Virginia member of Congress, proposing the election of Commissioners from North and South, to put an end to the war. What can this mean but reconstruction on the old Democratic basis? It will not meet with favor, unless we meet great reverses this winter. Still, but few have faith in foreign intervention, to terminate the war; and there is a growing party both in the North and the South opposed to its indefinite prolongation. If we beat Burnside, I think it will be the last battle of magnitude. If he beats us, no one can see the end of the struggle. But from every State complaints are made against the military agents of the Confederate Government, for their high-handed oppressions. We may split up into separate States, and then continue the war--but it will be a sad day for us! The President ought to change his cabinet immediately, and then change his policy. He should cultivate the friendship and support of the people, and be strong in their affections, if he would rule with a strong hand. If he offends and exasperates them, they will break his power to pieces. And he should not attempt to destroy, nor permit others to destroy, the popular leaders. That way lies his own destruction.
DECEMBER 3D.--One of the President's Aids, Mr. Johnston, has asked the Secretary's permission for Mrs. E. B. Hoge, Mrs. M. Anderson, Miss Judith Venable, and Mrs. R. J. Breckinridge, with children and servants, to leave Richmond by flag of truce, and proceed to their homes in Kentucky. Of course it will be granted--the President sanctions it, but does not commit himself by ordering it.
There was no fighting on the Rappahannock yesterday, and no rumors to-day.
Letters were received from Gen. Lee to-day. He says several thousand of his men are barefoot! He suggests that shoes be taken from the extortioners at a fair price. That is right. He also recommends a rule of the department putting cavalry on foot when they cannot furnish good horses, and mounting infantry that can and will procure them. This would cause better care to be taken of horses. Gen. Lee also writes for more arms--which may indicate a battle. But the weather is getting bad again, and the roads will not admit of marching.
Mr. Gastrell, M. C., writes to the Secretary of War for permission for Messrs. Frank and Gernot, a Jew firm of Augusta, Ga., to bring through the lines a stock of goods they have just purchased of the Yankees in Memphis. Being a member of Congress, I think his request will be granted. And if all such applications be granted, I think money-making will soon absorb the war, and bring down the prices of goods.
We are a confident people. There are no symptoms of trepidation, although a hostile army of 150,000 men is now within two day's march of our capital. A few of guilty consciences, the extortioners, may feel alarm--but not the women and children. They reflect that over one hundred thousand of the enemy were within four miles of the city last spring and summer--and were repulsed.
The negroes are the best-clad people in the South. They have their Sunday clothing, and the half-worn garments of their masters and mistresses; and having worn these but once a week, they have a decidedly fresher aspect than the dresses of their owners. They are well fed, too, at any cost, and present a happy appearance. And they are happy. It is a great mistake of the Abolitionists, in supposing the slaves hail their coming with delight; on the contrary, nearly all the negroes regard their approach with horror.
It might be well for the South if 500,000 of the slaves were suddenly emancipated. The loss would not be felt--and the North would soon be conscious of having gained nothing! My friend, Dr. Powell, near the city, abandoned his farm last summer, when it was partly in possession of the enemy, leaving fifty negroes on it--which he could have sold for $50,000. They promised not to leave him, and they kept their word. Judge Donnell, in North Carolina, has left his plantation with several hundred thousand dollars worth on it--rather risking their loss than to sell them.
DECEMBER 4TH.--All is quiet (before the storm) on the Rappahannock, Gen. Jackson's corps being some twenty miles lower down the river than Longstreet's. It is said Burnside has been removed already and Hooker given the command.
Gen. S. Cooper takes sides with Col. Myers against Gen. Wise. Gen. W.'s letter of complaint of the words, "Let them suffer," was referred to Gen. C., who insisted upon sending the letter to the Quartermaster-General before either the Secretary or the President saw it,--and it was done. Why do the Northern men here hate Wise?
Gen. Lee dispatches to-day that there is a very large amount of corn in the Rappahannock Valley, which can be procured, if wagons be sent from Richmond. What does this mean? That the enemy will come over and get it if we do not take it away?
A letter from the President of the Graniteville Cotton Mills, complains that only 75 per ct. profit is allowed by Act of Congress, whose operatives are exempted from military duty, if the law be interpreted to include sales to individuals as well as to the government, and suggesting certain modifications. He says he makes 14,000 yards per day, which is some 4,000,000 per annum. It costs him 20 cts. per yard to manufacture cotton cloth, including, of course, the cotton, and 75 per ct. will yield, I believe, $500,000 profits, which would be equivalent to 32 cts. per yard. But the market price, he says, is 68 cts. per yard, or some $2,000,000 profits! This war is a great encourager of domestic manufacturers, truly!
The Governor sends out a proclamation to-day, saying the President has called on him and other governors for assistance, in returning absent officers and men to their camps; in procuring supplies of food and clothing for the army; in drafting slaves to work on fortifications; and, finally, to put down the extortioners. The Governor invokes the people to respond promptly and fully. But how does this speak for the government, or rather the efficiency of the men who by "many indirect ways" came into power? Alas! it is a sad commentary.
The President sent a hundred papers to the department to-day, which he has been diligently poring over, as his pencil marks bear ample evidence. They were nearly all applications for office, and this business constitutes much of his labor.
DECEMBER 5TH.--Yesterday there was some little skirmishing below Fredericksburg. But it rained last night, and still rains. Lee has only 30,000 or 40,000 effective men.
We have the Federal President's Message to-day. It is moderate in tone, and is surprising for its argument on a new proposition that Congress pass resolutions proposing amendments to the Constitution, allowing compensation for all slaves emancipated between this and the year 1900! He argues that slaves are property, and that the South is no more responsible for the existence of slavery than the North! The very argument I have been using for twenty years. He thinks if his proposition be adopted that "several of the border States will embrace its terms, and that the Union will be reconstructed." He says the money expended in this way will not amount to so much as the cost of a war of subjugation. He is getting sick of the war, and therein I see the "beginning of the end" of it. It is a good sign for us, perhaps. I should not be surprised if his proposition had advocates in the South.
Lt.-Col. T. C. Johnson sent in a communication, to-day. He alludes to an interview with the Secretary, in which the latter informed him that the government intended to exchange cotton for supplies for the army, and Lt.-Col. J. suggests that it be extended to embrace all kinds of merchandise for the people, and informs him that New York merchants are willing to send merchandise to our ports if we will permit their ships to return laden with cotton, at 50 cts. per pound, and pledging themselves to furnish goods at 50 per cent. advance on cost. He advocates a trade of this nature to the extent of $100,000,000, our government (and not individuals) to sell the cotton. The goods to be sold by the government to the merchants here. I know not what answer the Secretary will make. But I know our people are greedy for the merchandise.
The enemy have shelled Port Royal, below Fredericksburg, in retaliation for some damage done their gun-boats in the river by one of our land batteries. And we have news of the evacuation of Winchester by the enemy. The Northern papers say Burnside (who is not yet removed) will beat Lee on the Rappahannock, and that their army on the James River will occupy Richmond. When Lee is beaten, perhaps Richmond will fall.
A large number of our troops, recruited in Kentucky, have returned to their homes. It is said, however, that they will fight the enemy there as guerrillas.
The President has appointed his nephew, J. R. Davis, a brigadier-general. I suppose no president could escape denunciation, nevertheless, it is to be regretted that men of mind, men who wrought up the Southern people, with their pens, to the point of striking for national independence, are hurled into the background by the men who arranged the programme of our government. De Bow was offered a lower clerkship by Mr. Secretary Memminger, which he spurned; Fitzhugh accepted the lower class clerkship Mr. M. offered him after a prolonged hesitation; and others, who did more to produce the revolution than any one of the high functionaries now enjoying its emoluments, are to be found in the lowest subordinate positions; while Tom, Dick, and Harry, never heard of before, young, and capable of performing military service, rich, and able to live without office, are heads of bureaus, chief clerks of departments, and staff-officers flourishing their stars! Even this is known in the North, and they exult over it as a just retribution on those who were chiefly instrumental in fomenting revolution. But they forget that it was ever thus, and that our true patriots and bold thinkers who furnish our lesser men, in greater positions, with ideas, are still true and steadfast in the cause they have advocated so long.
DECEMBER 7TH.--Last night was bitter cold, and this morning there was ice on my wash-stand, within five feet of the fire. Is this the "sunny South" the North is fighting to possess? How much suffering must be in the armies now encamped in Virginia! I suppose there are not less than 250,000 men in arms on the plains of Virginia, and many of them who survive the war will have cause to remember last night. Some must have perished, and thousands, no doubt, had frozen limbs. It is terrible, and few are aware that the greatest destruction of life, in such a war as this, is not produced by wounds received in battle, but by disease, contracted from exposure, etc., in inclement seasons. But the deadly bullet claims its victims. A friend just returned from the battle-field of June, near the city, whither he repaired to recover the remains of a relative, says the scene is still one of horror. So great was the slaughter (27th June) that we were unable to bury our own dead for several days, for the battle raged a whole week, and when the work was completed, the weather having been extremely hot, it was too late to inter the enemy effectually, so the earth was merely thrown over them, forming mounds, which the rains and the wind have since leveled. And now the ground is thickly strewn with the bleaching bones of the invaders. The flesh is gone, but their garments remain. He says he passed through a wood, not a tree of which escaped the missiles of the contending hosts. Most of the trees left standing are dead, being often perforated by scores of Minie-balls, but thousands were prostrated by cannon-balls and shells. It will long remain a scene of desolation, a monument of the folly and wickedness of man.
And what are we fighting for? What does the Northern Government propose to accomplish by the invasion? Is it supposed that six or eight million of free people can be exterminated? How many butchers would be required to accomplish the beneficent feat? More, many more, than can be sent hither. The Southern people, in such a cause, would fight to the last, and when the men all fell, the women and children would snatch their arms and slay the oppressors. Without complete annihilation, it is the merest nonsense to suppose our property can be confiscated.
But if a forced reconstruction of the Union were consummated, does the North suppose any advantage would result to that section? In the Union we could not be compelled to trade with them again. Nor would intercourse of any kind be re-established. Their ships would be destroyed, and their people could never come among us but at the risk of ill treatment. They could not maintain a standing army of half a million, and they could not disarm us in such an extensive territory.
The best plan, the only plan, to redeem the past and enjoy blessings in the future, is to cease this bootless warfare and be the first to recognize our independence. We are exasperated with Europe, and like the old colonel in Bulwer's play, we can like a brave foe after fighting him. Let the North do this, and we will trade with its people, I have no doubt, and a mutual respect will grow up in time, resulting, probably, in combinations against European powers in their enterprises against governments on this continent.
DECEMBER 8TH.--A letter from Gen. Lee, received to-day, states that, in the recent campaigns, he has experienced the effects of having inferior artillery and fixed ammunition. But this discrepancy is rapidly disappearing, from captures of the enemy's batteries, etc. He recommends that our 12-pounder howitzers and 6-pounder smooth bores be recast into 12-pounder Napoleons, 10-pounder Parrott guns, and 3-inch rifle cannon. He wants four 12-pounder Napoleons sent him immediately, for a special purpose. His next battle will be principally with artillery.
Gov. Vance sends a letter, referring to an order of the government that all cotton not removed west of the Weldon and Williamsburg Railroad, by the 16th instant, is to be destroyed. He says his State is purchasing 15,000 to 20,000 bales, to establish a credit in Europe, and asks that the Confederate Government authorities will respect the cotton designed for this purpose. He says he will destroy it himself, when the enemy approaches. He says, moreover, that the order will have an unhappy effect; that many of the people have already lost their slaves, grain, etc. from the inroads of the enemy, and have nothing to live on but their cotton. If it remains where it is, how can they subsist on it without selling it to the enemy? And that would be treason, pretty nearly. But why does the government issue such an order in North Carolina, when the government itself is selling, not destroying, the cotton of Mississippi?
The President of the Central Railroad says that Messrs. Haxhall, Crenshaw & Co., who have the gigantic contract with the government to furnish flour, and who have a preference of transportation by the contract, are blocking up their depots, and fail to remove the grain. They keep whole trains waiting for days to be unladen; and thus hundreds of thousands of bushels, intended for other mills and the people are delayed, and the price kept up to the detriment of the community. Thus it is that the government contractors are aiding and abetting the extortioners. And for this reason large amounts of grain may fall into the hands of the enemy.
DECEMBER 9TH.--W----l, another of Provost Marshal Griswold's policemen, has arrived in Washington. I never doubted he was secretly in the Yankee service here, where many of his fellows still remain, betraying the hand that feeds them. Gen. Winder and the late Secretaries of War must be responsible for all the injury they may inflict upon the country.
Yesterday, the President received a letter from a gentleman well known to him, asserting that if Mississippi and Alabama be overrun by the enemy, a large proportion of the people of those States will certainly submit to the Government of the United States. The President sent this letter to the Secretary of War "for his information."
A letter from W. P. Harris, Jackson, Mississippi, urges the government to abandon the cities and eastern seaboard, and concentrate all the forces in the West, for the defense of the Mississippi Valley and River, else the latter must be lost, which will be fatal to the cause, etc.
Hon. J. H. Reagan has written a savage letter to the Secretary of War, withdrawing certain papers relating to an application for the discharge from service of his brother-in-law, on account of feeble health. He says he will not await the motions (uncertain) of the circumlocution office, and is unwilling to produce evidence of his statements of the disability of his relative. Mr. Seddon will doubtless make a spirited response to this imputation on his office.
We have a rumor that Morgan has made another brilliant raid into Kentucky, capturing 1800 of the enemy.
The small-pox is spreading in this city to an alarming extent. This is the feast to which Burnside is invited. They are vaccinating the clerks in the departments.
Gen. Floyd writes the government that, as the enemy cannot advance from the West before spring, Echol's and Marshall's forces (10,000) might be used on the seaboard. I wish they were here.
The United States forces in the field, by their own estimates, amount to 800,000. We have not exceeding 250,000; but they are not aware of that.
DECEMBER 10TH.--Not a word from the Rappahannock. But there soon will be.
Official dispatches from Gen. Bragg confirm the achievement of Col. Morgan, acting as brigadier-general. There was a fight, several hundred being killed and wounded on both sides; but Morgan's victory was complete, his captures amounting to 1800 men, a battery, wagon train, etc.
We have also a dispatch that Major-Gen. Lovell, the Yankee, had a battle with the enemy, killing, wounding, and capturing 34!
A characteristic letter was received to-day from Mr. Sanford, Alabama, recommending Col. Dowdell for a brigadiership. I hope he may get it, as he is a gallant Southerner. Mr. S. has some hard hits at the government; calling it a government of chief clerks and subordinate clerks. He hopes Mr. Seddon will not be merely a clerk.
Gen. Jos. E. Johnston has written from the West a gloomy letter to Mr. Wigfall, Texan Senator. He says he is ordered to reinforce Lieut.-Gen. Pemberton (another Northern general) from Bragg's army. Pemberton is retreating on Grenada, Mississippi, followed by 40,000 of the enemy. How is he, Gen. J., to get from Tennessee to Grenada with reinforcements, preceded by one army of the enemy, and followed by another?
Mr. Wigfall recommends the Secretary (as if he could do it!) to concentrate all the armies of the West, and beat the enemy out of the Mississippi Valley. Gen. Johnston says Lieut.-Gen. Holmes has been ordered to reinforce Pemberton. Why, this is the very thing Mr. Randolph did, and lost his clerkship for it! The President must have changed his mind.
Gen. Randolph sent in his resignation as brigadier-general to-day. The younger brigadiers, Davis (the President's nephew) and Pryor, have been recently assigned to brigades, and this may have operated on Randolph as an emetic.
There are two war steamers at Charleston from abroad; one a Frenchman, the other an Englishman. Gen. Beauregard entertained the officers of the first the other day.
Gen. Banks has sailed down the coast on an expedition, the nature of which, no doubt, will be developed soon.
DECEMBER 11TH.--Gen. Lee dispatched this morning early that the enemy were constructing three pontoon bridges, and that firing had commenced on both sides. At nine o'clock A.M. the firing increased, and Gen. Lee dispatched for ammunition, looking to the contingency of a prolonged battle.
At three P.M., Gen. Lee says, the enemy had been repulsed in two of their attempts to throw bridges over the river; but the third attempt would probably succeed, as it was under cover of batteries which commanded the river, and where his sharpshooters could not reach the workmen. But, he says, his batteries command the plain where the enemy must debouch. We may speedily hear of a most sanguinary conflict.
Burnside must have greatly superior numbers, or else he is a great fool to precipitate his men into a plain, where every Southern soldier is prepared to die, in the event of failure to conquer! There is no trepidation here; on the contrary, a settled calm on the faces of the people, which might be mistaken for indifference. They are confident of the success of Lee, and really seem apprehensive that Burnside will not come over and fight him in a decisive battle. We shall soon see, now, of what stuff Burnside and his army are made. I feel some anxiety; because the destruction of our little army on the Rappahannock might be the fall of Richmond.
It is rumored that the President started two days ago for the West--Tennessee and Mississippi. No papers have been sent in by him since Tuesday, and it may be true. If so, he means to return speedily. I think we shall soon have news from the lower James River.
A letter from the Governor of Alabama calls urgently for heavy guns, and a reserve force, for the defense of Mobile.
Major Hause, the government's agent in Europe, has purchased, up to this time, 157,000 stand of arms, besides many cannon, much ammunition, quartermaster's stores, etc. A portion was lost in transitu, however, but not a large amount. Besides the large sums he has expended, he has obtained credit to the extent of $6,000,000!
They are calling for a guard at Petersburg against incendiaries. A factory was burned the other night. This is bad.
Scully and Lewis, condemned to die as spies, have been pardoned by the President, and are to be sent North.
Another dispatch from Gen. Lee, dated 3-1/2 P.M., says the enemy has nearly completed his bridge, and will probably commence crossing this evening or in the morning. The bulletin boards in the city purport to give intelligence of the passage having been effected in part; but I do not see how the editors could have obtained their information.
At 6 P.M., passengers by the Fredericksburg train (which left at 1 P.M.) report the shelling of the town, and a great battle in progress on this side of the river. I doubt both; and I saw but one excited man (a Jew) who said he was in Fredericksburg when the shelling began. I do not believe it. The cars were not within four miles of the town, and perhaps merely conjectured the cannonading they heard to be directed at the town. There were no ladies or children in the cars. But doubtless the enemy will cross the river, and there will be a battle, which must result in a great mortality.
DECEMBER 12TH.--The enemy have possession of Fredericksburg, and succeeded in crossing a large portion of their force three miles below, on their pontoon bridge. Up to 3 P.M. to-day, we have no other intelligence but that "they are fighting." We shall know more, probably, before night.
The President has passed through East Tennessee on his way to Mississippi.
Lieut.-Col. Nat Tyler, publisher of the Enquirer, the organ of the government, was in my office this morning, denouncing Mr. Memminger, Secretary of the Treasury. He says Mr. M.'s head is as worthless as a pin's-head. He also denounced the rules of admission to our Secretary, adopted by Mr. R. G. H. Kean, Chief of the Bureau, and asked for a copy of them, that he might denounce them in his paper. It appears that Mr. Jacques is to say who can see the Secretary; and to do this, he must catechize each applicant as to the nature of his business. This is deemed insulting by some of the hot bloods, and will make friend Mr. J.'s position rather a disagreeable and derogatory one.
DECEMBER 13TH.--After all, Fredericksburg was severely shelled--whether designedly or incidentally in the fight, does not yet appear.
Our army has fallen back a little--for a purpose. Lee knows every inch of the ground.
Again we have rumors of a hostile fleet being in the river; and Major-Gen. G. W. Smith has gone to Petersburg to see after the means of defense, if an attack should be made in that quarter. Some little gloom and despondency are manifested, for the first time, in this community.
Major-Gen. S. Jones writes that although the Federal Gen. Cox has left the valley of the Kanawha, 5000 of his men remain; and he deems it inexpedient, in response to Gen. Lee's suggestion, to detach any portion of his troops for operations elsewhere. He says Jenkins's cavalry is in a bad condition.
Here is an instance of South Carolina honor. During the battle of Williamsburg, last spring, W. R. Erwin, a private in Col. Jenkins's Palmetto sharpshooters, was detailed to take care of the wounded, and was himself taken prisoner. The enemy supposing him to be a surgeon, he was paroled. He now returns to the service; and although the mistake could never be detected, he insists on our government exchanging a private of the enemy's for himself. With the assurance that this will be done, he goes again to battle.
Yesterday flour and tobacco had a fall at auction. Some suppose the bidders had in view the contingency of the capture of the city by the enemy.
In the market-house this morning, I heard a man speaking loudly, denounce a farmer for asking about $6 a bushel for his potatoes, and hoping that the Yankees would take them from him for nothing!
DECEMBER 14TH, SUNDAY.--Yesterday was a bloody day. Gen. Lee telegraphs that the enemy attacked him at 9 A.M., and as the fog lifted, the fire ran along the whole line, and the conflict raged until darkness (6 P.M.) put an end to the battle. The enemy was repulsed at all points, he continued, thanks be to God! But we have to mourn, as usual, a heavy loss. Lee expects another blow at Burnside to-day.
It is understood that Gens. Hood, Texas, was wounded; T. R. R. Cobb, Georgia, and a brigadier from South Carolina were killed. A dispatch says that where our generals fell, the colonels could no longer restrain their regiments; and the men ran into the ranks of the enemy, and, animated with a spirit of desperation, slaughtered the foe in great numbers with their bayonets, pistols, and knives.
Preparations are being made here for the reception of the wounded. The request was to provide for a large number.
Last night, at nine o'clock, a number of regiments which had been encamped among the fortifications northwest of the city, were marched down to Drewry's Bluff. It is probable Gen. Smith has heard of the enemy's approach from that quarter. I hope he may prove the right man in the right place.
It is rumored that we were repulsed yesterday, this side of Suffolk.
At this critical moment the President is away.
A dispatch from Gen. Lee says Gen. Wade Hampton dashed into Dumfries, the other side of the Rappahannock, and in the rear of the enemy, capturing some wagons, and taking a few men. This seems most extraordinary. If he be not taken himself, the diversion must have a good effect; but if he be taken, it will be considered a wild and desperate sally, boding no good to the cause. But Lee knows what he is about.
From the dispositions of our troops (few in number) in the vicinity of Richmond, at this moment, it seems to me that Gen. Smith is putting the city to great hazard. There are not a thousand men to guard the approach from the head of York River; and if a dozen of the enemy's swift transports were to dash up that river, the city could be surprised by 5000 men!
Ten o'clock A.M. No dispatches from Lee have come over the wires to-day. He may have interdicted others. We got no intelligence whatever. From this I infer the battle was resumed at early dawn, and the general deems it best to have no announcements but results. If this be so, it is a day big with events--and upon its issue may depend the fate of governments. And yet our people exhibited no trepidation. The foreign portion of the population may be seen grouped on the pavements indulging in speculation, and occasionally giving vent to loud laughter, when a Jew is asked what will be the price of his shoes, etc. to-morrow. They care not which side gains the day, so they gain the profits.
But our women and children are going to church as usual, to pray for the success of the cause, and not doubting but that our army will triumph as usual on the field of combat. It is a bright and lovely Sabbath morning, and as warm as May.
DECEMBER 15TH.--Yesterday evening several trains laden with wounded arrived in the city. The remains of Brig.-Gen. T. R. R. Cobb, of Georgia, were brought down. Brig.-Gen. Gregg, of South Carolina, is said to be mortally wounded. It is now believed that Major-Gen. Hood, of Texas, did not fall. The number of our killed and wounded is estimated, by a surgeon who came with the wounded, to be not over a thousand.
To-day, stragglers from the battle-field say that our loss in killed and wounded is 3000. It is all conjecture.
There was heavy skirmishing all day yesterday, and until to-day at noon, when the telegraph operator reports that the firing had ceased. We know not (yet) what this means. We are still sending artillery ammunition to Gen. Lee.
Gen. Evans dispatches from Kinston, N. C., that on the 14th, yesterday, he repulsed the enemy, 15,000 strong, and drove them back to their boats in Neuse River. A portion of Gen. R. A. Pryor's command, in Isle of Wight County, was engaged with the enemy's advance the same day. They have also landed at Gloucester Point. This is pronounced a simultaneous attack on our harbors and cities in Virginia and North Carolina. Perhaps we shall have more before night. Our people seem prepared for any event.
Another long train of negroes have just passed through the city, singing, to work on the fortifications.
DECEMBER 16TH.--To-day the city is exalted to the skies! Gen. Lee telegraphed that the enemy had disappeared from his front, probably meditating a design to cross at some other place. Such were his words, which approach nearer to a practical joke, and an inkling of exultation, than anything I have seen from his pen. He has saved the capital. Before the enemy could approach Richmond from "some other place;" Lee would be between him and the city, and if he could beat him on the Rappahannock he can beat him anywhere.
Doubtless Burnside has abandoned his heavy stores, siege guns, etc., and at this moment our army must occupy the town. Lee allowed the invaders to cross the river, and, in exact accordance with his promise, made a month ago, before they could advance from Fredericksburg, his "whole army was in position." They could not debouch without passing through our crescent line, the extreme ends of which touched the river above and below them. They attempted this on Saturday, and met with a bloody defeat, and until last night, when they retraced their steps, were confined to an exceedingly narrow and uncomfortable strip of land along the south bank of the river.
Our loss in the battle will not exceed, perhaps, 2000 men, not more than 500 being slain. It is estimated that the enemy's loss is over 10,000, and it may greatly exceed that number, as our positions were strong and our batteries numerous. The enemy fought well, charging repeatedly over the plain swept completely by our guns, and leaving the earth strewn with their dead. We have many prisoners, but I have heard no estimate of the number.
The enemy have taken Kinston, N. C., having overwhelming numbers, and a letter from Gen. Bragg, dated at Raleigh, yesterday, says it is probable Goldsborough will fall into their hands. This will cut our railroad communication with Wilmington, which may likewise fall--but not without its price in blood.
Why not let the war cease now? It is worse than criminal to prolong it, when it is apparent that subjugation is an impossibility.
There were no stragglers from Lee's army, and never were men in better spirits and condition. They are well clad and fed, and exceedingly anxious for Burnside to resume his "On to Richmond" after the skirmish of Saturday. They call it but a skirmish, for not a brigade was blown, not a regiment fatigued.
Although men shake hands over this result, they all say they never looked for any other termination of Burnside. The ladies say he is now charred all over. Well, he may come again by some other route, but I have doubts. The rigors of winter are sufficient punishment for his troops. It is said Burnside intended to resume the battle on Sunday morning, but his generals reported that their men could not be relied upon to approach our batteries again. I shall look with interest for the next Northern papers.
DECEMBER 17TH.--A dispatch from Gen. G. W. Smith, last night, says we have repulsed the enemy from Kinston, N. C., but a dispatch this morning says a cavalry force has cut the railroad near Goldsborough, broken down the wires, and burnt the bridge. We had no letters from beyond that point this morning.
Last night large quantities of ammunition and some more regiments were sent to North Carolina. This is done because Richmond is relieved by the defeat and retreat of Burnside. But suppose it should not be relieved, and a force should be sent suddenly up the James and York Rivers?
We have not a word from Fredericksburg, and it is probable Burnside's batteries still command the town. Lee is content and has no idea of crossing the river.
There are two notable rumors in the streets: first, that we have gained a great battle in Tennessee; and, second, that the government at Washington has arrested John Van Buren and many other Democratic leaders in the North, which has resulted in a riot, wherein 1000 have fallen, making the gutters in New York run with blood!
Gen. Lee's official report says our loss in the battle of the 13th in killed and wounded did not exceed 1200, whereas our papers said 2050 wounded have already been brought to this city.
Well, our government must have spies at Washington as an offset to Federal spies here among Gen. Winder's policemen; for we knew exactly when the enemy would begin operations in North Carolina, and ordered the cotton east of the Weldon Railroad to be burnt on the 16th inst., yesterday, and yesterday the road was cut by the enemy. I have not heard of the cotton being burnt--and I don't believe it was destroyed. Nor do I believe Gen. Smith knew that Burnside would be defeated in time to send troops from here to North Carolina.
Elwood Fisher died recently in Georgia, and his pen, so highly prized by the South for its able vindication of her rights, was forgotten by the politicians who have power in the Confederate Government. All Mr. Memminger would offer him was a lowest class clerkship. He died of a broken heart. He was more deserving, but less fortunate, than Mr. M.
It was Mr. Memminger, it seems, who refused to contribute anything to supply the soldiers with shoes, and the press is indignant. They say he is not only not a native South Carolinian, but Hessian born.
DECEMBER 18TH.--We have more accounts of the battle of Fredericksburg now in our possession. Our loss in killed and wounded will probably be more than the estimate in the official report, while Federal prisoners report theirs at 20,000. This may be over the mark, but the Examiner's correspondent at Fredericksburg puts down their loss at 19,000. The Northern papers of the 14th inst. (while they supposed the battle still undecided) express the hope that Burnside will fight his last man and fire his last cartridge on that field, rather than not succeed in destroying Lee's army! Lee's army, after our victory, is mostly uninjured. The loss it sustained was not a "flea-bite."
The enemy, in their ignominous flight on Saturday night, left their dead propped up as sentinels and pickets, besides 3000 on the plain.
Accounts from North Carolina indicate the repulse of the enemy, though they have burnt some of the railroad bridges. We shall hear more anon. Reinforcements are flying to the scene of action.
DECEMBER 19TH.--Gen. Burnside acknowledges a loss of upwards of 5000, which is good evidence here that his loss was not less than 15,000. The Washington papers congratulate themselves on the escape of their army, and say it might have been easily captured by Lee. They propose, now, going into winter quarters.
We have nothing further from North Carolina or Mississippi. Gen. Banks's expedition had passed Hilton Head.
A Mr. Bunch, British Consul, has written an impudent letter to the department, alleging that an Irishman, unnaturalized, is forcibly detained in one of our camps. He says his letters have not been answered, which was great discourtesy, and he means to inform Lord John Russell of it. This letter was replied to in rather scathing terms, as the Irishman had enlisted and then deserted. Besides, we are out of humor with England now, and court a French alliance.
The President was at Chattanooga on the 15th instant; and writes the Secretary that he has made some eight appointments of brigadiers, and promotions to major-generals. Major-Gen. Buckner is assigned to command at Mobile.
We are straightened for envelopes, and have taken to turning those we receive. This is economy; something new in the South. My family dines four or five times a week on liver and rice. We cannot afford anything better; others do not live so well.
Custis and I were vaccinated to-day, with the rest of the officers of the department.
The Northern papers now want the Federal army to go into winter quarters. This was, confessedly, to be the final effort to take Richmond. It failed. Many of the people regard the disaster of Burnside as the harbinger of peace.
An officer from the field informs me that all our generals were sadly disappointed, when it was discovered that Burnside had fled. They wanted one more blow at him, and he would have been completely destroyed.
DECEMBER 20TH.--Last accounts from Fredericksburg state that the enemy are retiring toward the Potomac and Washington. We have got some of their pontoon bridges, and other things left behind. It is now very cold, with a fair prospect of the Potomac freezing over. Let them beware!
But we were in a bad way: our army, instead of numbering 200,000 as the Federal journals report, did not exceed 50,000 men; and not half that number went into action. The Secretary of War had ordered several regiments from Gen. S. Jones, in Western Virginia; now sent to North Carolina.
There is no mail yet from beyond Goldsborough, and the news from North Carolina seems vague and unsatisfactory. They say we beat the enemy at Kinston; yet they have destroyed a portion of the railroad between Goldsborough and Wilmington. They say the Federals are retreating on Newbern; yet we know they made 500 of our men prisoners after they crossed the Neuse. It is reported that our loss is small, and the enemy's large; and that our 3000 men fought successfully their 18,000. However, we have sent some 15,000 reinforcements.
It is reported that the Federals are evacuating Nashville; but reports from the West are not always reliable.
A communication has been received by Secretary Seddon from S. B. M., of Vicksburg, proposing to purchase shoes, blankets, etc. in the United States, and sell them to the government for cotton or for Confederate notes. This was referred to the Quartermaster-General, who favors it. Now what will Mr. Secretary do? Better wait till the President returns!
The late Secretary of War, Mr. Randolph, has formed a partnership with Mr. G. A. Myers. To-day a paper was sent in by them to the new Secretary, containing the names of ten clients, all Jews and extortioners, who, it appears, at the beginning of the war, and before Virginia had fully seceded, joined several Virginia companies of artillery, but did not drill with them. They hired substitutes for a small sum, all, as the memorial sets forth, being foreigners of the class subsequently exempted by act of Congress. And these counselors demand the exemption of the Jew extortioners on the ground that they once furnished substitutes, now out of the service! And it is probable they will carry their point, and gain large fees. Substitutes now are worth $2000--then, $100.
A dispatch from Charleston to-day says: "Iron steamer Columbia, formerly the Giraffe, of Liverpool, with cargo of shoes, blankets, Whitworth guns, and ammunition, arrived yesterday." I suppose cargoes of this nature have been arriving once a week ever since the war broke out. This cargo, and the ship, belong to the government.
9 O'CLOCK P.M.--After a very cold day, it has become intensely frigid. I have two fires in our little Robin's Nest (frame) on the same floor, and yet ice forms rapidly in both rooms, and we have been compelled to empty the pitchers! This night I doubt not the Potomac will be closed to Burnside and his transports! During the first Revolution, the Chesapeake was frozen over. If we have a winter like that, we shall certainly have an armistice in Virginia without the intervention of any other than the Great Power above. But we shall suffer for the want of fuel: wood is $18 per cord, and coal $14 per cart load.
Gen. Bonham, who somehow incurred the dislike of the authorities here, and was dropped out of the list of brigadiers, has been made Governor of South Carolina.
And Gen. Wise, who is possessed of perhaps the greatest mind in the Confederacy, is still fettered. They will not let him fight a battle, because he is "ambitious!" When Norfolk was (wickedly) given up, his home and all his possessions fell into the hands of the enemy. He is now without a shelter for his head, bivouacing with his devoted brigade at Chaffin's farm, below the city. He is the senior brigadier in the army, and will never be a major-general.
DECEMBER 21ST, SUNDAY.--Nothing, yet, has been done by the immense Federal fleet of iron-clad gun-boats which were to devastate our coast this winter. But the winter is not over yet, and I apprehend something will be attempted. However, we shall make a heroic defense of every point assailed.
I omitted to state, in connection with the partnership formed between Mr. Myers and Mr. Randolph, that the former had already succeeded, when the latter was Secretary of War, in getting the substitutes of the Jew extortioners out of the army, on the ground that they were not domiciled in this country; and now both are intent on procuring the exemption of the principals. This may be good practice, but it is not good service. Every man protected and enriched by the government, owes service to the country in its hour of peril.
I am glad to hear that W. H. B. Custis, of the Eastern Shore of Virginia, takes no part in the war. This is the proper course for him under the circumstances. It is said he declined a high position tendered by the Federal Government. No doubt he has been much misrepresented: his principles are founded on the Constitution, which is violated daily at Washington, and therefore he can have no sympathy with that government.
DECEMBER 22D.--We shall never arrive at the correct amount of casualties at the battle of Fredericksburg. The Enquirer to-day indicates that our loss in killed, wounded, and missing (prisoners), amounted to nearly 4000. On the other hand, some of the Federal journals hint that their loss was 25,000. Gen. Armstrong (Confederate), it is said, counted 3500 of their dead on the field; and this was after many were buried. There are five wounded to one killed. But where Burnside is now, or what he will attempt next, no doubt Lee knows; but the rest of our people are profoundly ignorant in relation thereto. The New York Herald says: "The finest and best appointed army the world ever saw, has been beaten by a batch of Southern ragamuffins!" And it advises that the shattered remains of the army be put into winter quarters.
The weather has greatly moderated. I hope, now, it will continue moderate!
Mr. Crenshaw, who has the gigantic flour contract with the War Department, effected with Mr. Randolph, has just (in the President's absence) made another contract with Mr. Seddon. The department becomes a partner with him, and another party in England, in a huge commercial transaction, the object of which is to run goods in, and cotton out. We shall have our Girards, as well as the United States. Mr. Crenshaw proceeds to England immediately, bearing letters of credit to Mr. Mason, our Minister, etc.
An immense sum is to be sent West to pay for stores, etc., and Mr. Benjamin recommends the financial agent to the department. The illicit trade with the United States has depleted the country of gold, and placed us at the feet of the Jew extortioners. It still goes on. Mr. Seddon has granted passports to two agents of a Mr. Baumgartien--and how many others I know not. These Jews have the adroitness to carry their points. They have injured the cause more than the armies of Lincoln. Well, if we gain our independence, instead of being the vassals of the Yankees, we shall find all our wealth in the hands of the Jews.
The accounts from North Carolina are still conflicting. It is said the enemy have retired to Newbern; but still we have no letters beyond Goldsborough. From Raleigh we learn that the legislature have postponed the array bill until the 20th of January.
DECEMBER 23D.--The battle of Fredericksburg is still the topic, or the wonder, and it transpired more than nine days ago. It will have its page in history, and be read by school-boys a thousand years hence. The New York Times exclaims, "God help us--for man cannot." This is another war sheet. The Tribune is bewildered, and knows not what to say. The Herald says "everything by turns, and nothing long." Its sympathies are ever with the winning party. But it is positively asserted that both Seward and his son have resigned, to be followed by the rest of the cabinet. That example might be followed here without detriment to our cause. And it is said Burnside has resigned. I doubt that--but no doubt he will be removed. It is said Fremont has been appointed his successor. That would be good news. I think Halleck will be removed, and McClellan will be recalled. No matter.
It is said our President will command in Mississippi himself--the army having no confidence in Pemberton, because he is a Yankee.
We have a letter to-day from Gen. Pike (another Yankee), saying the Indian country is lost--lost, because Gens. Holmes and Hindman--Southern men--won't let him have his own way!
The news from North Carolina is still cloudy. Gen. G. W. Smith is there (another Northern man).
Gen. Elzey has been appointed to command this department during Gen. L.'s absence. Gen. E. is a Marylander. In the President's absence, it is said this appointment was made by Gen. S. Cooper (another Yankee) to insult Virginia by preventing the capital from being in the hands of a Virginian. The Richmond papers occasionally allude to the fact that the general highest in rank in the Confederacy is a Yankee--Gen. S. Cooper.
Gen. Lee says his ammunition is bad in quality, and that his new guns burst in the late battle--all under charge of the chief of the Bureau of Ordnance--another Yankee. Gen. D. H. Hill writes a scathing letter to the department in response to a rebuke from the new Secretary, occasioned by some complaints of Major Palfrey in Gen. Cooper's (A. and I. General) office. I do not know where Major P. came from; but the fact that he was not in the field, gave the general occasion to rasp him severely. It must have been caused by an order transferring, furloughing, or discharging some soldier in Gen. H.'s division--and his patience vanished at the idea of having his men taken out of the ranks without consulting him, by carpet knights and civilian lawyers. He says 8000 are now absent from his command--and that Gen. Johnston's army, last spring, was reduced from the same cause to 40,000 men, where he had to oppose 138,000 of the "rascally Yankees." He concludes, however, by saying it is the duty of subordinate generals in the field to submit in all humility to the behests of their superiors comfortably quartered in Richmond. But if justice were done, and the opinions of the generals in the field were regarded in the matter of discharges, etc., the lawyers, who have grown fat on fees by thinning our ranks, would be compelled to resort to some more laudable means of making a living.
A letter from Gov. Shorter, of Alabama, introduces Judge Rice, agent for P. S. Gerald and J. R. Powell, who propose to bring goods into the Confederate States through Mexico, to be paid for in cotton, etc. This was referred by the Secretary to the Quartermaster-General--who protests against it on the ground that it might interfere with his agents already engaged in the business.
The President publishes a retaliatory proclamation to-day against Gen. Butler, for hanging Mr. Munford, of New Orleans, who took down the United States flag before the city had surrendered. He declares Butler to be out of the pale of civilization; and orders any commander who may capture him, to hang him as an outlaw. And all commissioned officers serving under Butler, and in arms with negroes, to be reserved for execution.
There is a rumor that an agent of the Federal Government has arrived in the city, to propose an armistice. No armistice, unless on the basis of uli possidetis ante bellum!
Bethel, Leesburg, and Fredericksburg are victories memorable for our great success when fighting in advantageous positions. They teach a lesson to generals; and it will be apparent that no necessity exists for so great an expenditure of life in the prosecution of this war. The disparity of numbers should be considered by our generals. I fear the flower of our chivalry mostly perished in storming batteries. It is true a prestige was gained.
DECEMBER 24TH.--The Louisville Journal says the defeat of Burnside is "sickening," and that this sad condition of affairs cannot be borne long.
It is said that Confederate bonds are bringing quite as much in New York as in Richmond; and that the bonds of Southern men are freely discounted in the North. These, if true, are indications of approaching peace. Cotton at 50 cents per pound, and our capacity to produce five million bales per annum, must dazzle the calculating Yankees. A single crop worth $1,000,000,000! What interest or department of industry in the United States can promise such results?
Letters were received to-day from Nassau, dated 12th December. Mr. L. Heyliger, our agent, reports a number of steamers sailing, and about to sail, with large amounts of stores and goods of all kinds, besides plates for our navy. A Mr. Wiggs has several steamers engaged in this business. Our government own some, and private individuals (foreign speculators) are largely engaged in the trade. Most of these steamers run sixteen miles an hour.
A Mr. Hart, agent for S. Isaac Campbell & Co., London, proposes to clothe and equip 100,000 men for us, and to receive certificates for specific amounts of cotton. This same house has, on this, it is said, advanced as much as $2,000,000 on our account. This looks cheering. We have credit abroad. But they are Jews.
Mr. Heyliger says he has seen letters from the United States, conveying information that Charleston is to be attacked about the holidays--the ensuing week--by four iron-clad gun-boats. Well, I believe we have three there; so let them come!
Every day we have propositions to supply the army and the country with goods, for cotton; and they succeed in delivering stores, etc., in spite of the vigilance of the Federal blockading squadrons. There is a prospect that we shall have abundance of everything some of these days. But there is some wrangling. The Quartermaster-General complains to-day that Lieut.-Gen. Pemberton has interfered with his agents, trading cotton for stores. Myers is a Jew, and Pemberton a Yankee--so let them fight it out.
DECEMBER 25TH, CHRISTMAS DAY.--Northern papers show that there is much distraction in the North; that both Seward and Chase, who had resigned their positions, were with difficulty persuaded to resume them. This news, coupled with the recent victory, and some reported successes in the West (Van Dorn's capture of Holly Springs), produces some effect on the spirits of the people here; and we have a merrier Christmas than the last one.
It is said the Federal Congress is about to provide for the organization of 100 regiments of negroes. This does not occasion anxiety here. The slaves, once armed, would cut their way back to their masters. The only possible way to restore the Union--if indeed it be possible--is to withdraw all the Federal troops, and maintain an effective blockade. There might possibly ensue dissensions among our politicians and States, detrimental to any required unity of purpose. But the Yankees, with all their smartness, cannot perceive this. They can never appal us with horrors, for we have fed upon nothing else for so long a period, that we have become accustomed to them. And they have not men enough to subjugate us and hold us in subjugation. Two millions would not suffice!
The boys are firing Chinese crackers everywhere, and no little gunpowder is consumed in commemoration of the day.
But turkeys are selling at $11 each! Shoes for $25 per pair. Salt, however, has fallen from $1.50 to 33 cents per pound. Fresh meats sell at from 35 to 50 cents per pound.
A silver (lever) watch, which had been lying in my trunk for two years, and which cost me $25, sold at auction yesterday for $75. This sufficed for fuel for a month, and a Christmas dinner. At the end of another month, my poor family must be scattered again, as this house will be occupied by its owner. I have advertised for boarding in the country, but get no response. It would require $300 per month to board my family here, and that is more than my income. What shall we do? Trust in God!
DECEMBER 26TH.--We have no news to-day--not even a rumor. We are ready for anything that may come. No doubt the assailants of Mobile, Wilmington, or Charleston, will meet with determined resistance.
The President will be in Richmond about the first day of January. I saw a man who traveled with him in Alabama.
Vicksburg, I understand, cannot be taken by water. And Grant, the Federal general, is said to be retreating out of Mississippi.
DECEMBER 27TH.--The successes in the West have been confirmed. Morgan captured 2000 and Van Dorn 1500 prisoners at Holly Springs. They likewise destroyed a large amount of stores.
We have intelligence of a great armament, under Gen. Sherman, sailing from Memphis against Vicksburg. At the last accounts the President was at Vicksburg; and he may be witness of this decisive struggle for the possession of the Mississippi River, the result of which involves immense interests. We await with much anxiety the issue of the naval operations during the ensuing month. We are content with the land achievements of this year; and if we should be equally successful in resisting the enemy's fleets, we shall deem ourselves fortunate indeed.
The agents of the Commissary and Quartermaster-General make grievous complaints against Lieut.-Gen. Pemberton, at Grenada, Mississippi; they say he interferes with their arrangements to procure supplies--for cotton; and it is intimated that he has some little arrangements of his own of that nature. This illicit trade is very demoralizing in its nature.
Oh, that peace would return! But with INDEPENDENCE!
DECEMBER 28TH.--We have no news to-day from the West. If the great battle has been fought at Vicksburg, we ought to know it to-day or to-morrow; and if the enemy be beaten, it should be decisive of the war. It would be worse than madness to continue the contest for the Union.
Several fine brass batteries were brought down from Fredericksburg last night, an indication that the campaign is over for the winter in that direction.
If we should have disasters in the West, and on the Southern seaboard, the next session of Congress, to begin a fortnight hence, will be a stormy one.
DECEMBER 29TH.--We have a dispatch from Vicksburg at last. The enemy, 25,000 strong, were repulsed three times yesterday, and finally driven back seven miles, to their gun-boats. It was no battle, for our loss was only 30, and that of the enemy 400. It will be fought to-day, probably.
It is said an attempt will be made this week on Weldon, as well as Charleston.
Our Morgan has been in Kentucky again, and captured 1200 men. Glorious Morgan!
The accounts from the United States are rather cheering. The Herald proposes a convention of all the "loyal States," that reconstruction may be tried in that way. A dispatch from Tennessee says, even the New York Tribune expresses the opinion that our independence must be recognized. The Philadelphia Press proposes another route to Richmond via the rivers, and thinks Richmond may be taken yet, and the rebellion crushed.
The surgeon in charge of the Howard Hospital reports that the small-pox is greatly on the increase, and terminating fatally in almost every case. He says men die of it without eruptions on the surface, the disease striking inward. It is proposed to drive away the strangers (thousands in number), if they will not leave voluntarily. There are too many people here for the houses, and the danger of malignant diseases very great.
My vaccination was not a success; very little inflammation and a small scab being the only evidences. But I have a cough, and much lassitude.
DECEMBER 30TH.--We have another crisis. Dispatches from Murfreesborough state the hostile armies are facing each other, and not a mile apart; the skirmishing increases, and a decisive battle may occur at any moment.
From Vicksburg we have no further intelligence; but from the Rappahannock we learn that both artillery and infantry were distinctly heard yesterday in the direction of Dumfries. Is Stuart there?
DECEMBER 31ST.--There were more skirmishes near Vicksburg yesterday; and although several of the Louisiana regiments are said to have immortalized themselves (having lost only two or three men each), I suppose nothing decisive was accomplished. I have not implicit faith in Western dispatches; they are too often exaggerations. And we have nothing further from Murfreesborough.
But there is reliable intelligence from Albemarle Sound, where a large fleet of the enemy's transports appeared yesterday. We must look now for naval operations. Perhaps Weldon is aimed at.
Gen. Wise writes a remarkable letter to the department. His son, just seventeen years old, a lieutenant in 10th Virginia Cavalry, was detailed as ordnance officer of the general's brigade, when that regiment was taken from his father. Now Gen. Cooper, the Northern head of the Southern army, orders him to the 10th Cavalry. The general desires his son to remain with him, or that the lieutenant may be permitted to resign. He says he asks no favors of the administration, and has never received any. His best blood (Capt. O. J. W.) has been given to the country, and his home and property lost by the surrender of Norfolk, etc.
To-day, Gen. Winder's account for disbursement of "secret service" money was sent in. Among the persons who were the recipients of this money, I noticed Dr. Rossvally, a notorious spy, and S----w, one of his policemen, who, with W----ll, very recently fled to the enemy, and is now in the service of the United States, at Washington!
Gen. Lee has given the command in Northwestern Virginia to Gen. W. E. Jones; and he asks the Secretary to hold a major he has captured as a hostage for the good conduct of the Federal Gen. Milroy, who is imitating Gen. Pope in his cruelties to civilians.
Chapter XXII
Lee in winter quarters.--Bragg's victory in the Southwest.--The President at Mobile.--Enemy withdraw from Vicksburg.--Bragg retreats as usual.--Bureau of Conscription.--High rents.--Flour contracts in Congress.--Efforts to escape conscription.--Ships coming in freely.-- Sneers at negro troops.--Hopes of French intervention.--Gen. Rains blows himself up.--Davis would be the last to give up.--Gov. Vance protests against Col. August's appointment as commandant of conscripts.--Financial difficulties in the United States.
JANUARY 1ST, 1863.--This first day of the year dawned in gloom, but the sun, like the sun of Austerlitz, soon beamed forth in great splendor upon a people radiant with smiles and exalted to the empyrean.
A letter from Gen. H. Marshall informed the government that Gen. Floyd had seized slaves in Kentucky and refused to restore them to their owners, and that if the government did not promptly redress the wrong, the Kentuckians would at once "take the law into their own hands."
We had a rumor (not yet contradicted) that the enemy, or traitors, had burned the railroad bridge between Bristol and Knoxville, cutting our communication with the West.
Then it was said (and it was true) that Gen. Lee had sent his artillery back some 30 miles this side of the Rappahannock, preparatory to going into winter quarters. But this was no occasion for gloom. Lee always knows what is best to be done.
Next there was a rumor (not yet confirmed, but credited) that Stuart had made another of his wonderful reconnoissances, capturing prisoners and destroying much of the enemy's stores beyond the Rappahannock.
Then came a dispatch from Bragg which put us almost "beside" ourselves with joy, and caused even enemies to pause and shake hands in the street. Yesterday he attacked Rosecrans's army near Murfreesborough, and gained a great victory. He says he drove him from all his positions, except on the extreme left, and after ten hours' fighting, occupied the whole of the field except (those exceptions!) the point named. We had, as trophies, thirty-one guns, two generals, 4000 prisoners, and 200 wagons. This is a Western dispatch, it is true, but it has Bragg's name to it, and he does not willingly exaggerate. Although I, for one, shall await the next dispatches with anxiety, there can be no question about the victory on the last day of the bloody year 1862. Bragg says the loss was heavy on both sides.
I noticed that one of the brass pieces sent down by Lee to go to North Carolina had been struck by a ball just over the muzzle, and left a glancing mark toward the touch-hole. That ball, probably, killed one of our gunners.
JANUARY 2D.--A dispatch from Gov. Harris gives some additional particulars of the battle near Murfreesborough, Tenn. He says the enemy was driven back six miles, losing four generals killed and three captured, and that we destroyed $2,000,000 commissary and other stores. But still we have no account of what was done yesterday on the "extreme left."
Gen. Stuart has been near Alexandria, and his prisoners are coming in by every train. He captured and destroyed many stores, and, up to the last intelligence, without loss on his side. He is believed, now, to be in Maryland, having crossed the Potomac near Leesburg.
The mayor of our city, Jos. Mayo, meeting two friends last night, whom he recognized but who did not recognize him, playfully seized one of them, a judge, and, garroter fashion, demanded his money or his life. The judge's friend fell upon the mayor with a stick and beat him dreadfully before the joke was discovered.
The President was at Mobile on the 30th December, having visited both Murfreesborough and Vicksburg, but not witnessing either of the battles.
We are in great exaltation again! Dispatches from Gen. Bragg, received last night, relieve us with the information that the stronghold of the enemy, which he failed to carry on the day of battle, was abandoned the next day; that Forrest and Morgan were operating successfully far in the rear of the invader, and that Gen. Wheeler had made a circuit of the hostile army after the battle, burning several hundred of their wagons, capturing an ordnance train, and making more prisoners. Bragg says the enemy's telegraphic and railroad communications with his rear have been demolished, and that he will follow up the defeated foe. I think we will get Nashville now.
JANUARY 3D.--To-day we have a dispatch from Vicksburg stating that the enemy had re-embarked, leaving their intrenching instruments, etc., apparently abandoning the purpose of assaulting the city. This is certainly good news.
Gen. Stuart did not cross the Potomac, as reported in the Northern press, but, doubtless, the report produced a prodigious panic among the Yankees. But when Stuart was within eight miles of Alexandria, he telegraphed the government at Washington that if they did not send forward larger supplies of stores to Burnside's army, he (Stuart) would not find it worth while to intercept them.
Capt. Semmes, of the Alabama, has taken another prize--the steamer Ariel--but no gold being on board, and having 800 passengers, he released it, under bonds to pay us a quarter million dollars at the end of the war.
A large meeting has been held in New York, passing resolutions in favor of peace. They propose that New Jersey send a delegation hither to induce us to meet the United States in convention at Louisville, to adopt definitive terms of peace, on the basis of the old Union, or, that being impracticable, separation. Too late!
JANUARY 4TH.--We have nothing additional from Murfreesborough, but it is ascertained that the bridges burned by the enemy on the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad cannot be repaired in a month.
It really does seem that some potent and malign influence, resident at the capital, some high functionary, by some species of occultation, controlling the action of the government, a Talleyrand in the pay of both governments, and balancing or equalizing disasters between them to magnify his importance and increase his reward, has been controlling many events since the beginning of this war, and is still engaged in the diabolical work. It now appears that several regiments were withdrawn from the vicinity of Bristol, whose presence there was necessary for the protection of the railroad and the bridges. They were brought hither after Lee's defeat of Burnside, for the protection of the capital! The President was away, and Mr. Seddon was now in the War Office. But Gen. Cooper is old in office, and should have known better; and Gen. G. W. Smith certainly must have known better. Just suppose we had been beaten at Murfreesborough, and our communications cut, west and east and south! There would have been no escape.
It had even been proposed to take a large portion of Lee's men from him, so that he must be inevitably defeated on the Rappahannock, but Lee's resignation would have shocked the people unbearably. Great injury was done him by abstracting some 20,000 of his men by discharges, transfers, and details. Nothing but his generalship and the heroism of his men saved us from ruin. The disasters of Donelson, Newbern, Nashville, Memphis, Roanoke, New Orleans, Norfolk, etc. may be traced to the same source. But all new governments have been afflicted by a few evil-disposed leaders.
Our people in arms have upheld the State; they have successfully resisted the open assaults of the invader, and frustrated the occult machinations of the traitors in our midst. We have great generals, but what were they without great men to obey them? Generals have fallen, and divisions and brigades have fought on without them. Regiments have lost their field officers and continued the fight, and companies have maintained their position after all their commissioned officers were stricken down. The history which shall give the credit of their achievements to others will be a vile calumny. Our cause would have been ruined if it had not been for the bravery and heroism of the people--the privates in our armies.
There is a rumor this morning that the enemy are advancing toward Petersburg from Suffolk. If this be so, some spy, under the protection of martial law, has informed the Yankees of our defenseless condition at that place, being alarmed at the success of our brave and patriotic men in the West.
JANUARY 5TH.--We learn from Gen. Bragg that the enemy did not retire far on the 2d inst., but remain still in the vicinity of Murfreesborough. He says, however, that our cavalry are still circling the Yankees, taking prisoners and destroying stores. During the day an absurd rumor was invented, to the effect that Bragg had been beaten. We are anxious to learn the precise particulars of the battle. It is to be feared that too many of Bragg's men were ordered to reinforce Pemberton. If that blunder should prove disastrous, the authorities here will have a hornet's nest about their ears. The President arrived yesterday, and his patriotic and cheering speech at Jackson, Miss., appeared in all the papers this morning.
We hear of no fighting at Suffolk. But we have dispatches from North Carolina, stating that a storm assailed the enemy's fleet off Hatteras, sinking the Monitor with all on board, and so crippling the Galena that her guns were thrown overboard! This is good news--if it be confirmed.
A letter from Major Boyle, in command at Gordonsville, gives information that the smugglers and extortioners are trading tobacco (contraband) with the enemy at Alexandria. He arrested B. Nussbaum, E. Wheeler, and S. Backrack, and sent them with their wagons and goods to Gen. Winder, Richmond. But instead of being dealt with according to law, he learns that Backrack is back again, and on his way to this city with another wagon load of goods from Yankee-land, and will be here to-day or to-morrow. I sent the letter to the Secretary, and hope it will not be intercepted on its way to him from the front office. The Secretary never sees half the letters addressed him, or knows of one-half the attempts of persons to obtain interviews. The Assistant Secretary's duty is to dispose of the less important communications, but to exhibit his decisions.
JANUARY 6TH.--To-day we are all down again. Bragg has retreated from Murfreesborough. It is said he saved his prisoners, captured cannon, etc., but it is not said what became of his own wounded. The Northern papers say they captured 500 prisoners in the battle, which they claim as a victory. I do not know how to reconcile Bragg's first dispatches, and particularly the one saying he had the whole field, and would follow the enemy, with this last one announcing his withdrawal and retirement from the field.
Eight thousand men were taken from Bragg a few days before the battle. It was not done at the suggestion of Gen. Johnston; for I have seen an extract of a letter from Gen. J. to a Senator (Wigfall), deprecating the detachment of troops from Bragg, and expressing grave apprehensions of the probable consequences.
A letter was received from R. R. Collier, Petersburg, to-day, in favor of civil liberty, and against the despotism of martial law.
Senator Clark, of Missouri, informed me to-day that my nephew, R. H. Musser, has been made a colonel (under Hindman or Holmes), and has a fine regiment in the trans-Mississippi Department.
Lewis E. Harvie, president of the railroad, sends a communication to the Secretary (I hope it will reach him) inclosing a request from Gen. Winder to permit liquors to be transported on his road to Clover Hill. Mr. Harvie objects to it, and asks instructions from the Secretary. He says Clover Hill is the point from which the smuggling is done, and that to place it there, is equivalent to bringing it into the city.
JANUARY 7TH.--To-day I was requested to aid, temporarily, in putting in operation a new bureau, created by the military authorities, not by law, entitled the Bureau of Conscription. From conscription all future recruits must be derived. I found Gen. Rains, the chief, a most affable officer; and Lieut.-Col. Lay, his next officer, was an acquaintance. I shall not now, perhaps, see so much of the interior of this moving picture of Revolution; my son, however, will note important letters. It is said that Sumner's corps (of Burnside's army) has landed in North Carolina, to take Wilmington. We shall have news soon.
We are sending troops rapidly from Virginia to North Carolina.
The Northern papers say the following dispatch was sent to Washington by our raiding Stuart: "Gen. Meigs will in future please furnish better mules; those you have furnished recently are very inferior." He signed his own name.
A large body of slaves passed through the city to-day, singing happily. They had been working on the fortifications north of the city, and go to work on them south of it. They have no faith in the efficacy of Lincoln's Emancipation.
But it is different in Norfolk; 4000 enfranchised slaves marched in procession through the town the other day in a sort of frantic jubilee. They will bewail their error; and so will the Abolitionists. They will consume the enemy's commissary stores; and if they be armed, we shall get their arms.
Lee and Beauregard were telegraphed to-day in relation to the movement on Wilmington; and the President had the cabinet with him many hours.
Gen. Rains is quite certain that the fall of New Orleans was the result of treachery.
By the emancipation, Gen. Wise's county, Princess Ann, is excepted--and so are Accomac and Northampton Counties; but I have no slaves. All I ask of the invaders is to spare my timber, and I will take care of the land--and I ask it, knowing the request will never be known by them until the war is over.
JANUARY 8TH.--Gen. French writes that the enemy at Suffolk and Newbern amounted to 45,000; and this force now threatens Weldon and Wilmington, and we have not more than 14,000 to oppose them. With generalship that should suffice.
All the Virginia conscripts are ordered to Gen. Wise, under Major-Gen. Elzey. The conscripts from other States are to be taken to Gen. Lee. If the winter should allow a continuance of active operations, and the enemy should continue to press us, we might be driven nearly to the wall. We must help ourselves all we can, and, besides, invoke the aid of Almighty God!
We have nothing fresh from Bragg--nothing from Vicksburg--and that is bad news.
I like Gen. Rains. He comes in and sits with me every day. Col. Lay is the active business man of the bureau. The general is engaged in some experiments to increase the efficiency of small arms.
He is very affable and communicative. He says he never witnessed more sanguinary fighting than at the battle of the Seven Pines, where his brigade retrieved the fortunes of the day; for at one time it was lost. He was also at Yorktown and Williamsburg; and he cannot yet cease condemning the giving up of the Peninsula, Norfolk, etc. Gen. Johnston did that, backed by Randolph and Mallory.
We have all been mistaken in the number of troops sent to the rescue of North Carolina; but four or five regiments, perhaps 3000 men, have gone thither from Virginia. A letter from Gen. Lee, dated the 5th inst., says he has not half as many men as Burnside, and cannot spare any. He thinks North Carolina, herself, will be able to expel the Federals, who probably meditate only a marauding expedition. And he supposes Bragg's splendid victory (what did he suppose the next day?) may arrest the inroads of the enemy everywhere for a season. At this moment I do not believe we have 200,000 men in the field against 800,000! But what of that, after seeing Lee beat 150,000 with only 20,000 in action! True, it was an ambuscade.
JANUARY 9TH.--The Northern papers say the Federals have taken Vicksburg; but we are incredulous. Yet we have no reliable intelligence from thence; and it may be so. It would be a terrible blow, involving, for a time, perhaps, the loss of the Mississippi River.
But we have cheering news from Galveston, Texas. Several of our improvised gun-boats attacked the enemy's war vessels in the harbor, and after a sanguinary contest, hand to hand, our men captured the Harriet Lane, a fine United States ship of war, iron clad. She was boarded and taken. Another of the enemy's ships, it is said, was blown up by its officers, rather than surrender, and many perished. If this be Magruder's work, it will make him famous.
Our public offices are crowded with applicants for clerkships, mostly wounded men, or otherwise unfit for field duty.
How can we live here? Boarding is $60 per month, and I have six to support! They ask $1800 rent for a dwelling--and I have no furniture to put in one. Gen. Rains and I looked at one to-day, thinking to take it jointly. But neither of us is able to furnish it. Perhaps we shall take it, nevertheless.
JANUARY 10TH.--We have news from the West, which is believed to be reliable, stating that Bragg captured 6000 prisoners altogether in his late battles; took 30 cannon, 800 stand of arms, and destroyed 1500 wagons and many stores. The estimated loss of the enemy in killed and wounded is put down at 12,000. Our loss in killed and wounded not more than half that number.
To-day we have official intelligence confirming the brilliant achievement at Galveston; and it was Magruder's work. He has men under him fitted for desperate enterprises; and he has always had a penchant for desperate work. So we shall expect to hear of more gallant exploits in that section. He took 600 prisoners.
We have news also from Vicksburg, and the city was not taken; on the contrary, the enemy had sailed away. I trust this is reliable; but the Northern papers persist in saying that Vicksburg has fallen, and that the event took place on the 3d inst.
Six hundred women and children--refugees--arrived at Petersburg yesterday from the North. They permit them to come now, when famine and pestilence are likely to be added to the other horrors of war! We are doomed to suffer this winter!
JANUARY 11TH.--The message of Gov. Seymour, of New York, if I am not mistaken in its import and purposes, will have a distracting effect on the subjugation programme of the government at Washington. I shall look for riots, and perhaps rebellions and civil wars in the North.
Mr. Stanley, ycleped Governor of North Carolina, has written a letter (dated 31st December) to Gen. French, complaining that our soldiery have been guilty of taking slaves from their humane and loyal masters in Washington County, against their will; and demanding a restoration of them to their kind and beneficent owners, to whom they are anxious to return. Gen. French replies that he will do so very cheerfully, provided the United States authorities will return the slaves they have taken from masters loyal to the Confederate States. These may amount to 100,000. And he might have added that on the next day all--4,000,000--were to be emancipated, so far as the authority of the United States could accomplish it.
The enemy's gun-boats (two) came up the York River last week, and destroyed an oyster boat. Beyond the deprivation of oysters, pigs, and poultry, we care little for these incursions.
JANUARY 12TH.--The news of the successful defense of Vicksburg is confirmed by an official dispatch, to the effect that the enemy had departed up the Mississippi River. By the late Northern papers, we find they confess to a loss of 4000 men in the several attacks upon the town! Our estimate of their loss did not exceed that many hundred. They lost two generals, Morgan and another. We did not lose a hundred men, according to our accounts. The Herald (N. Y.) calls it "another Fredericksburg affair."
The estimate of the enemy's loss, at Murfreesborough, from 12,000 to 20,000, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, and ours at from four to nine thousand. Bragg says he will fight again near the same place, and his men are in high spirits.
Our men fight to kill now, since the emancipation doom has been pronounced. But we have had a hard rain and nightly frosts, which will put an end to campaigning during the remainder of the winter. The fighting will be on the water, or near it.
The legislature is in session, and resolutions inimical to the passport system have already been introduced. But where are State Rights now?
Congress meets to-morrow.
JANUARY 13TH.--The generals in North Carolina are importunate for reinforcements. They represent the enemy as in great force, and that Weldon, Goldsborough, Raleigh, and Wilmington are in extreme peril. Lee cannot send any, or, if he does, Richmond will be threatened again, and possibly taken.
How shall we live? Boarding ranges from $60 to $100 per month. Our landlord says he will try to get boarding in the country, and if he succeeds, probably we may keep the house we now occupy, furnished, at a rent of $1200, for a mere robin's nest of four rooms! But I hope to get the house at the corner of First and Casey, in conjunction with Gen. Rains, for $1800. It has a dozen rooms.
JANUARY 14TH.--Gen. Beauregard, some of whose forces have been taken from him and sent to the defense of Wilmington, is apprehensive that they may be lost, in the event of the enemy making a combined naval and land attack, and then Charleston and Savannah would be in great peril. Gens. Smith and Whiting call lustily for aid, and say they have not adequate means of defense.
Some 4000 more negroes have been called for to work on the fortifications near Richmond. I believe 10,000 are at work now.
A letter "by order" of the Secretary of War to Col. Godwin, in King and Queen County, written by Judge Campbell, says that blockaders are allowed to run through, provided they be not suspicious parties. The government takes what it wants at seventy-five per cent. and releases the rest. The parties are liable to have their goods confiscated by the Secretary of the Treasury, who, however, the letter proceeds to say, has never molested any one in the illicit trade--smuggling.
In Congress, yesterday, Mr. Foote called for a committee to investigate the commissary's contract with Haxhall, Crenshaw & Co., and was particularly severe on Major Ruffin, in the commissary's office, whom he understood was a partner in the flour concern.
Mr. Foote introduced a series of resolutions to-day, tempting the Northern States to make peace with us separately, excluding the New England States, and promising commercial advantages, etc. But we must treat as independent States, pledging a league with those that abandon the United States Government--offensive and defensive--and guaranteeing the navigation of the Mississippi River to the Northwestern States. They were referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, of which he is the chairman. This is nothing.
But neither yesterday nor the day before was there a quorum of both houses; a sad spectacle in such a season of gloom. It was enlivened, however, by a communication from the Surgeon-General, proposing to send surgeons to vaccinate all the members. They declined the honor, though the small-pox is raging frightfully.
To-day a quorum was found in each house, and the President's message was sent in. I have not read it yet.
JANUARY 15TH.--The President's message is highly applauded. It is well written; but I do not perceive much substance in it, besides some eloquent reproaches of England and France for the maintenance of their neutrality, which in effect is greatly more beneficial to the United States than to us. The President essays to encourage the people to continued effort and endurance--and such encouragement is highly judicious at this dark epoch of the struggle. He says truly we have larger armies, and a better supply of arms, etc., now, than we have had at any time previously.
The President says he will, unless Congress directs differently, have all Federal officers that we may capture, handed over to the States to be dealt with as John Brown was dealt with. The Emancipation Proclamation, if not revoked, may convert the war into a most barbarous conflict.
Mr. Foote, yesterday, introduced a resolution requesting the recall of our diplomatic agents; and, after a certain time, to notify the foreign consuls to leave the country, no longer recognizing them in an official capacity.
A bill was introduced making Marylanders subject to conscription.
JANUARY 16TH.--Gen. Lee is in the city, doubtless to see about the pressure upon him for reinforcements in North Carolina. Gen. Smith still writes from Goldsborough for more men, with doleful forebodings if they be refused.
From Eastern Tennessee, we have bad accounts of outrages by the disloyal inhabitants, who have fled, to escape conscription, to the mountains and caves, many of them taking their families. At night they emerge from their hiding-places, and commit depredations on the secessionists.
It has been blowing a gale for two days, and there are rumors of more losses of the enemy's ships on the coast of North Carolina.
A letter was received by the government to-day from Arizona, justifying Col. Baylor for his policy of dealing with the Indians. I do not hear of any steps yet on the part of the President.
A report of the commandant at Camp Holmes, Raleigh, N. C., states that 12,000 conscripts have been received there altogether; 8000 have been sent off to regiments, 2000 detailed on government work, 500 deserted, etc.
The Enquirer to-day publishes the fact that a ship, with stores, merchandise, etc., has just arrived at Charleston; that six more are on the way thither, and that a steamer has successfully run the blockade from Wilmington with cotton. This notification may increase the vigilance of the blockading fleet. The Enquirer is also perpetually tilting with the Raleigh Standard. I doubt the policy of charging the leading journals in North Carolina with predilections for the Union. I believe the Enquirer has no settled editor now.
Mr. Foote favors the conscription of Marylanders. If such an act should be likely to pass, Gen. Winder will be beset with applications to leave the Confederacy.
JANUARY 17TH.--Gen. Lee has left the city. His troops, encamped thirty miles north of Richmond, marched northward last night. So it is his determination to cross the Rappahannock? Or is it a demonstration of the enemy to prevent him from sending reinforcements to North Carolina? We shall know speedily.
North Carolina, one would think, is soon to be the scene of carnage; and it is asked what can 16,000 men do against 60,000?
The enemy began the attack on Fort Caswell yesterday; no result. But one of his blockaders went ashore in the storm, and we captured the officers and crew.
All the conscripts in the West have been ordered to Gen. Bragg.
Shall we starve? Yesterday beef was sold for 40 cts. per pound; to-day it is 60 cts. Lard is $1.00. Butter $2.00. They say the sudden rise is caused by the prisoners of Gen. Bragg, several thousand of whom have arrived here, and they are subsisted from the market. Thus they injure us every way. But, n'importe, say some; if Lincoln's Emancipation be not revoked, but few more prisoners will be taken on either side. That would be a barbarous war, without quarter.
I see that Col. J. W. Wall, of New Jersey, has been nominated, and I suppose will be elected, U. S. Senator. He was confined for months in prison at Fort Lafayette. I imagine the colonel is a bold, able man.
JANUARY 18TH.--It was bitter cold last night, and everything is frozen this morning; there will be abundance of ice next summer, if we keep our ice-houses.
In these times of privation and destitution, I see many men, who were never prominent secessionists, enjoying comfortable positions, and seeking investments for their surplus funds. Surely there must be some compensation in this world or the next for the true patriots who have sacrificed everything, and still labor in subordinate positions, with faith and patient suffering. These men and their families go in rags, and upon half-rations, while the others fare most sumptuously.
We are now, in effect, in a state of siege, and none but the opulent, often those who have defrauded the government, can obtain a sufficiency of food and raiment. Calico, which could once be bought for 12-1/2 cts. per yard, is now selling at $2.25, and a lady's dress of calico costs her about $30.00. Bonnets are not to be had. Common bleached cotton shirting brings $1.50 per yard. All other dry goods are held in the same proportion. Common tallow candles are $1.25 per pound; soap, $1.00; hams, $1.00; oppossum $3.00; turkeys $4 to $11.00; sugar, brown, $1.00; molasses $8.00 per gallon; potatoes $6.00 per bushel, etc.
These evils might be remedied by the government, for there is no great scarcity of any of the substantials and necessities of life in the country, if they were only equally distributed. The difficulty is in procuring transportation, and the government monopolizes the railroads and canals.
Our military men apprehend no serious consequences from the army of negroes in process of organization by the Abolitionists at Washington. Gen. Rains says the negro cannot fight, and will always run away. He told me an anecdote yesterday which happened under his own observation. An officer, when going into battle, charged his servant to stay at his tent and take care of his property. In the fluctuations of the battle, some of the enemy's shot fell in the vicinity of the tent, and the negro, with great white eyes, fled away with all his might. After the fight, and when the officer returned to his tent, he was vexed to learn that his slave had run away, but the boy soon returned, confronting his indignant master, who threatened to chastise him for disobedience of orders. Caesar said: "Massa, you told me to take care of your property, and dis property" (placing his hand on his breast) "is worf fifteen hundred dollars." He escaped punishment.
Some 200,000 of the Abolition army will be disbanded in May by the expiration of their terms of enlistment, and we have every reason to believe that their places cannot be filled by new recruits. If we hold out until then, we shall be able to resist at all vital points.
JANUARY 19TH.--We have rumors of fighting this morning on the Rappahannock; perhaps the enemy is making another advance upon Richmond.
There was a grand funeral to-day,--Gen. D. R. Jones's; he died of heart disease.
Gen. Bragg dispatches that Brig.-Gen. Wheeler, with his cavalry, got in the rear of Rosecrans a few days ago, and burned a railroad bridge. He then penetrated to the Cumberland River, and destroyed three large transports and bonded a fourth, which took off his paroled prisoners. After this he captured and destroyed a gun-boat and its armament sent in quest of him.
We have taken Springfield, Missouri.
Rosecrans sends our officers, taken at Murfreesborough, to Alton, Ill., to retaliate on us for the doom pronounced in our President's proclamation, and one of his generals has given notice that if we burn a railroad bridge (in our own country) all private property within a mile of it shall be destroyed. The black flag next.
We have no news from North Carolina.
Mr. Caperton was elected C. S. Senator by the Virginia Legislature on Saturday, in place of Mr. Preston, deceased.
An intercepted letter from a Mr. Sloane, Charlotte, N. C., to A. T. Stewart & Co., New York, was laid before the Secretary of War yesterday. He urged the New York merchant, who has contributed funds for our subjugation, to send merchandise to the South, now destitute, and he would act as salesman. The Secretary indorsed "conscript him," and yet the Assistant Secretary has given instructions to Col. Godwin, in the border counties, to wink at the smugglers. This is consistency! And the Assistant Secretary writes "by order of the Secretary of War!"
JANUARY 20TH.--The rumor of fighting on the Rappahannock is not confirmed. But Gen. Lee writes that his beeves are so poor the soldiers won't eat the meat. He asks the government to send him salt meat.
From Northern sources we learn that Arkansas Post has fallen, and that we have lost from 5000 to 7000 men there. If this be true, our men must have been placed in a man-trap, as at Roanoke Island.
Mr. Perkins, in Congress, has informed the country that Mr. Memminger, the Secretary of the Treasury, has hitherto opposed and defeated the proposition that the government buy all the cotton. Mr. M. should never have been appointed. He is headstrong, haughty, and tyrannical when he imagines he is dealing with inferiors, and he deems himself superior to the rest of mankind. But he is no Carolinian by birth or descent.
We see accounts of public meetings in New Jersey, wherein the government at Washington is fiercely denounced, and peace demanded, regardless of consequences. Some of the speakers openly predicted that the war would spread into the North, if not terminated at once, and in that event, the emancipationists would have foes to fight elsewhere than in the South. Among the participants I recognize the names of men whom I met in convention at Trenton in 1860. They clamor for the "Union as it was, the Constitution as it is," adopting the motto of my paper, the "Southern Monitor," the office of which was sacked in Philadelphia in April, 1861. Our government will never agree to anything short of independence. President Davis will be found inflexible on that point.
There was a rumor yesterday that France had recognized us. The news of the disaster of Burnside at Fredericksburg having certainly been deemed very important in Europe. But France has not yet acted in our behalf. We all pray for the Emperor's intervention. We suffer much, and but little progress is made in conscription. Nearly all our resources are in the field. Another year of war, and ----!
JANUARY 21ST.--Last night the rain fell in torrents, and to-day there is a violent storm of wind from the N. W. This may put an end, for a season, to campaigning on land, and the enemy's fleet at sea may be dispersed. Providence may thus intervene in our behalf.
It is feared that we have met with a serious blow in Arkansas, but it is not generally believed that so many (5000 to 7000 men) surrendered, as is stated in the Northern papers. Gen. Holmes is responsible for the mishap.
Conscription drags its slow length along. It is not yet adding many to the army. The Assistant Secretary of War, and several others, "by order of the Secretary of War," are granting a fearful number of exemptions daily. Congress, I hope, will modify the exemption bill immediately. It is believed enrolling officers, surgeons, and others are permitting thousands to remain at home "for a price." Even clerks in the War Department, it is said, are driving a lucrative business in "getting men off," who should be on duty, in this war of independence. Young men in the departments, except in particular cases, will not stand in good repute "when the hurly burly's done, when the battle's lost and won."
Congress is at work projecting the organization of a Supreme Court.
JANUARY 22D.--We have reliable intelligence of the sinking of the U. S. gun-boat Hatteras, in the Gulf, by the Alabama. She was iron-clad, and all the officers and crew, with the exception of five, went down.
Gen. Whiting telegraphs to-day for the use of conscripts near Wilmington, in the event of an emergency. Several ships have just come in safely from abroad, and it is said a large number are on the way.
Mr. Miles yesterday reported, from the Military Committee, a bill repealing the existing exemption law, and embracing all male residents between the ages of 18 and 45 years. The President, or Secretary of War, to have authority to grant exemptions in certain cases, if deemed expedient. This ought to give us 200,000 more men. And they will be required.
A resolution was passed demanding of the Commissary and Quartermaster-General the number of their employees capable of performing military duty. It would be well to extend the inquiry to the War Department itself.
A letter from Norfolk states that at a grand ball, in celebration of the emancipation of the negroes, Gen. Vieille opened the dance with a mulatto woman of bad character as his partner; and Mrs. V. had for her partner a negro barber.
JANUARY 23D.--The Northern papers are filled with what purports to be the intercepted correspondence of Mr. Benjamin with Messrs. Mason and Slidell. Lord John Russell is berated. The Emperor of France is charged with a design to seize Mexico as a colony, and to recognize Texas separately, making that State in effect a dependency, from which cotton may be procured as an offset to British India. He says the French Consuls in Texas are endeavoring to detach Texas from the Confederacy. If this be a genuine correspondence, it will injure the South; if it be false (if the allegations be false), it will still injure us. I have no doubt of its genuineness; and that Mr. Sanders, once the correspondent of the New York Tribune, was the bearer. If Texas leaves us, so may Louisiana--and the gigantic Houmas speculation may turn out well at last.
Mr. Curry has brought forward a copyright bill; Mr. Foster, of Alabama, has introduced a bill to abolish the passport system--leaving the matter to railroad conductors.
A dispatch from Gen. Bragg assures us that our cavalry are still capturing and destroying large amounts of Rosecrans's stores on the Cumberland River.
Col. Wall has been elected Senator from New Jersey. They say he is still pale and ill from his imprisonment, for opinion sake. I hope he will speak as boldly in the Senate as out of it.
I met Gen. Davis to-day (the President's nephew), just from Goldsborough, where his brigade is stationed. He is in fine plumage--and I hope he will prove a game-cock.
Major-Gen. French, in command at Petersburg, is a Northern man. Our native generals are brigadiers. It is amazing that all the superior officers in command near the capital should be Northern men. Can this be the influence of Gen. Cooper? It may prove disastrous!
JANUARY 24TH.--Gen. Smith writes that he deems Wilmington in a condition to resist any attacks.
The exposition of Mr. Benjamin's dispatches has created profound mortification in the community.
Another transport has been taken from the enemy in the Cumberland River. No further news from Arkansas.
There is a white flag (small-pox) within seventy yards of our house. But it is probable we must give up the house soon, as the owner is desirous to return to it--being unable to get board in the country.
Gen. Rains, who has been making a certain sort of primer, met with an accident this morning; one of them exploded in his hand, injuring his thumb and finger. He was scarcely able to sign his name to official documents to-day.
Mr. Hunter has brought forward a measure for the funding of Treasury notes, the redundant circulation having contributed to produce the present fabulous prices in the market.
In the New Jersey Legislature petitions are flowing in denunciatory of Lincoln's Emancipation scheme, which would cast into the free States a large excess of profitless population.
JANUARY 25TH.--Gen. Lee mentions, in his recent correspondence, an instance of the barbarity of some of the Yankee soldiers in the Abolition Army of the Potomac. They thrust into the Rappahannock River a poor old negro man, whom they had taken from his master, because he had the small-pox; and he would have been drowned had he not been rescued by our pickets. It is surmised that this dreadful disease prevails to an alarming extent in the Yankee army, and probably embarrasses their operations. Our men have all been vaccinated; and their recklessness of disease and death is perhaps a guarantee of exemption from affliction. Their health, generally, is better than it has ever been before.
The government at Washington has interdicted the usual exchange of newspapers, for the present. This gives rise to conjecture that Lincoln experiences grave difficulties from the adverse sentiment of his people and his armies regarding his Emancipation Proclamation. And it is likely he has met with grave losses at sea, for the invading army in North Carolina has retired back on Newbern. But the season for naval enterprises is not over, and we are prepared to expect some heavy blows before April.
The revelations in the intercepted dispatches captured with Mr. Sanders, whose father is a notorious political adventurer, may be most unfortunate. They not only show that we even were negotiating for six war steamers, but give the names of the firms in Europe that were to furnish them. The project must now be abandoned. And Louis Napoleon will be enraged at the suspicions and imputations of our Secretary of State regarding his occult policy.
Gen. Rains has invented a new primer for shell, which will explode from the slightest pressure. The shell is buried just beneath the surface of the earth, and explodes when a horse or a man treads upon it. He says he would not use such a weapon in ordinary warfare; but has no scruples in resorting to any means of defense against an army of Abolitionists, invading our country for the purpose, avowed, of extermination. He tried a few shell on the Peninsula last spring, and the explosion of only four sufficed to arrest the army of invaders, and compelled them to change their line of march.
JANUARY 26TH.--The Northern papers say Hooker's grand division crossed the Rappahannock, ten miles above Falmouth, several days ago.
Burnside has issued an address to his army, promising them another battle immediately.
Gen. Lee advises the government to buy all the grain in the counties through which the canal runs. He says many farmers are hoarding their provisions, for extortionate prices.
I have no house yet. Dr. Wortham had one; and although I applied first, he let Mr. Reagan, the Postmaster-General, have it. He is a member of President Davis's cabinet--and receives $6000 salary.
There is much indignation expressed by the street talkers against Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Sanders, in the matter of the intercepted dispatches: against Mr. Benjamin for casting such imputations on Napoleon and his consular agents, and for sending his dispatches by such a messenger, in the absence of the President; against Sanders for not destroying the dispatches. Many think the information was sold to the United States Government.
Col. Wall has made a speech in Philadelphia. He said he should take his seat in the United States Senate as an advocate of peace; and he boldly denounced the Lincoln administration.
Our official report shows that our military authorities, up to this time, have burnt 100,000 bales of cotton in Arkansas. I have not learned the amount destroyed in other States--but it is large. Gen. Lee thinks the object of the expeditions of the enemy on the Southern coast is to procure cotton, etc. The slaves can do them no good, and the torch will disappoint the marauders.
Strong and belligerent resolutions have been introduced in the United States Congress against France, for her alleged purpose to obtain dominion in Mexico. It is violative of the Monroe doctrine. And Mr. Benjamin's accusation against the consuls (embracing a French design on Texas) might seem like a covert purpose to unite both the Confederate and the United States against France--and that might resemble premeditated reconstruction. But diplomatists must be busy--always at their webs. President Davis would be the last man to abandon the ship Independence.
JANUARY 27TH.--It is too true that several thousand of our men were captured at Arkansas Post, and that Little Rock is now in danger.
There seems to be no probability, after all, of an immediate advance of the enemy across the Rappahannock.
But there are eight iron-clad gun-boats and ninety sail at Beaufort, North Carolina, and, it is reported, 52,000 men. Wilmington will probably be assailed.
Mr. Foote said, yesterday, if Indiana and Illinois would recede from the war, he should be in favor of aiding them with an army against Lincoln. And all the indications from the North seem to exhibit a strong sentiment among the people favoring peace. But the people are not the government, and they sink peace and reconstruction together.
Yesterday Mr. Crockett, of Kentucky, said, in the House of Representatives, that there was a party in favor of forming a Central Confederacy (of free and slave States) between the Northern and Southern extremes. Impracticable.
To-day we have news of the bombardment of Fort McAlister, near Savannah. No result known. Now we shall have tidings every few days of naval operations. Can Savannah, and Charleston, and Wilmington be successfully defended? They may, if they will emulate the example of Vicksburg. If they fall, it will stagger this government--before the peace party in the North can operate on the Government of the United States. But it would not "crush the rebellion."
JANUARY 28TH.--The bombardment of Fort McAlister continued five hours yesterday, when the enemy's boats drew off. The injury to the fort can be repaired in a day. Not a man was killed or a gun dismounted. The injury done the fleet is not known. But the opinion prevails here that if the bombardment was continued to-day, the elongated shot of the enemy probably demolished the fort.
Last night and all this day it snowed incessantly--melting rapidly, however. This must retard operations by land in Virginia and probably in North Carolina.
JANUARY 29TH.--It appears from the Northern press that the enemy did make three attempts last week to cross the Rappahannock; but as they advanced toward the stream, the elements successfully opposed them. It rained, it snowed, and it froze. The gun carriages and wagons sank up to the hubs, the horses to their bodies, and the men to their knees; and so all stuck fast in the mud.
I saw an officer to-day from the army in North Carolina. He says the prospect for a battle is good, as soon as the roads admit of marching.
We have nothing further from the bombardment near Savannah. The wires may not be working--or the fort may be taken.
Gov. Vance has sent to the department a strong protest against the appointment of Col. August as commandant of conscripts in Northern Tennessee. Col. A. is a Virginian--that is the only reason. Well, Gen. Rains, who commands all the conscripts in the Confederate States, is a North Carolinian. But the War Department has erred in putting so many strangers in command of localities, where natives might have been selected. Richmond, for instance, has never yet been in the command of a Southern general.
There are indications of a speedy peace, although we are environed by sea and by land as menacingly as ever. The Tribune (New York) has an article which betrays much desperation. It says the only way for the United States Government to raise $300,000,000, indispensably necessary for a further prosecution of the war, is to guarantee (to the capitalists) that it will be the last call for a loan, and that subjugation will be accomplished in ninety days, or never. It says the war must then be urged on furiously, and negro soldiers sent among the slaves to produce an insurrection! If this will not suffice, then let peace be made on the best possible terms. The New York World denounces the article, and is for peace at once. It says if the project (diabolical) of the Tribune fails, it may not be possible to make peace on any terms. In this I see indications of a foregone conclusion. All over the North, and especially in the Northwest, the people are clamoring for peace, and denouncing the Lincoln Emancipation Proclamation. I have no doubt, if the war continues throughout the year, we shall have the spectacle of more Northern men fighting against the United States Government than slaves fighting against the South.
Almost every day, now, ships from Europe arrive safely with merchandise: and this is a sore vexation to the Northern merchants. We are likewise getting, daily, many supplies from the North, from blockade-runners. No doubt this is winked at by the United States military authorities, and perhaps by some of the civil ones, too.
If we are not utterly crushed before May (an impracticable thing), we shall win our independence.
JANUARY 30TH.--There is a rumor that Kentucky has voted to raise an army of 60,000 men to resist the execution of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.
Fort Caswell, below Wilmington, has been casemated with iron; but can it withstand elongated balls weighing 480 pounds? I fear not. There are, however, submarine batteries; yet these may be avoided, for Gen. Whiting writes that the best pilot (one sent thither some time ago by the enemy) escaped to the hostile fleet since Gen. Smith visited North Carolina, which is embraced within his command. This pilot, no doubt, knows the location of all our torpedoes.
Nothing further from Savannah.
Mr. Adams, the United States Minister at London, writes to Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, dated 17th of October, 1862, that if the Federal army shall not achieve decisive successes by the month of February ensuing, it is probable the British Parliament will recognize the Confederate States. To-morrow is the last day of January.
I cut the following from yesterday's Dispatch:
"The Results of Extortion and Speculation.--The state of affairs brought about by the speculating and extortion practiced upon the public cannot be better illustrated than by the following grocery bill for one week for a small family, in which the prices before the war and those of the present are compared:
1860. 1863.
Bacon, 10 lbs. at 12-1/2c $1 25 Bacon, 10 lbs. at $1 $10 00 Flour, 30 lbs. at 5c 1 50 Flour, 30 lbs. at 12-1/2c 3 75 Sugar, 5 lbs. at 8c 40 Sugar, 5 lbs. at $1 15 5 75 Coffee, 4 lbs. at 12-1/2c 50 Coffee, 4 lbs. at $5 20 00 Tea (green), 1/2 lb. at $1 50 Tea (green), 1/2 lb. at $16 8 00 Lard, 4 lbs. at 12-1/2c 50 Lard, 4 lbs. at $1 4 00 Butter, 3 lbs. at 25c 75 Butter, 3 lbs. at $1 75 5 25 Meal, 1 pk. at 25c 25 Meal, 1 pk. at $1 1 00 Candles, 2 lbs. at 15c 30 Candles, 2 lbs. at $1 25 2 50 Soap, 5 lbs. at 10c 50 Soap, 5 lbs. at $1 10 5 50 Pepper and salt (about) 10 Pepper and salt (about) 2 50 ---- ---- Total $6 55 Total $68 25
"So much we owe the speculators, who have stayed at home to prey upon the necessities of their fellow-citizens."
We have just learned that a British steamer, with cannon and other valuable cargo, was captured by the enemy, two days ago, while trying to get in the harbor. Another, similarly laden, got safely in yesterday. We can afford to lose one ship out of three--that is, the owners can, and then make money.
Cotton sells at seventy-five cents per pound in the United States. So the blockade must be felt by the enemy as well as ourselves. War is a two-edged sword.
JANUARY 31ST.--We have dispatches from Charleston, to-day, which reconcile us to the loss of the cargo captured by the blockading squadron early in the week. An artillery company captured a fine gun-boat in Stone River (near Charleston) yesterday evening. She had eleven guns and 200 men.
But this morning we did better still. Our little fleet of two iron-clads steamed out of Charleston harbor, and boldly attacked the blockading fleet. We crippled two of their ships, and sunk one, completely raising the blockade, for the time being. This will frustrate some of their plans, and may relieve Wilmington.
The attack on Fort McAlister was a failure. The monitor which assaulted the fort sustained so much injury, that it had to retire for repairs.
Several blockade-runners between this and Williamsburg were arrested and sent to Gen. Winder to-day by Lieut. G. D. Wise. Gen. W. sent them to Gen. Rains. Mr. Petit and Mr. James Custis (from Williamsburg) came with them to endeavor to procure their liberation. Gen. Rains sent them back to Gen. W., with a note that he had no time to attend to such matters. Such business does not pertain to his bureau. I suppose they will be released.
Major Lear, of Texas, who was at the capture of the Harriet Lane, met on the captured steamer his mortally-wounded son, the lieutenant.
A few days ago, Lieut. Buchanan was killed on a United States gun-boat by our sharpshooters. He was the son of Admiral Buchanan, in the Confederate service, now at Mobile. Thus we are reminded of the wars of the roses--father against son, and brother against brother. God speed the growth of the Peace Party, North and South; but we must have independence.
Mr. Hunter was in our office to-day, getting the release of a son of the Hon. Jackson Morton, who escaped from Washington, where he had resided, and was arrested here as a conscript. The Assistant Secretary of War ruled him entitled to exemption, although yesterday others, in the same predicament, were ruled into the service.
Chapter XXIII
Proposed fixture of prices.--Depreciation in the North.--Gen. Hooker in command of the U. S. forces.--Lee thinks Charleston will be attacked.--Congress does nothing.--Some fears for Vicksburg.-- Pemberton commands.--Wise dashes into Williamsburg.--Rats take food from my daughter's hand.--Lee wants the meat sent from Georgia to Virginia, where the fighting will be.--Gen. Winder uneasy about my Diary.--Gen. Johnston asks to be relieved in the West.
FEBRUARY 1ST.--The Virginia Legislature, now in session, has a bill under discussion for the suppression of extortion. One of the members, Mr. Anderson, read the following table of the prices of
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE.
Before the war. Now.
White wheat, per bushel $1 50 White wheat, per bushel $4 50 Flour, per barrel 7 50 Flour, per barrel 22 00 Corn, per bushel 70 Corn, per bushel 3 50 Hay, per hundred 1 00 Hay, per hundred 3 50 Hides, per pound 7 Hides, per pound 40 Beef, per pound 8 Beef, per pound 50 Bacon, per pound 13 Bacon, per pound 60 Lard, per pound 15 Lard, per pound 1 00 Butter, per pound 30 Butter, per pound 1 50 Irish potatoes 1 00 Irish potatoes 5 00 Sweet potatoes 1 00 Sweet potatoes 6 00 Apple brandy 1 00 Apple brandy 15 00 Wool, per pound 30 Wool, per pound 2 00
MANUFACTURES.
Bar iron, per pound 4 Bar iron, per pound 20 Nails, per pound 4 Nails, per pound 60 Leather, sole, per pound 25 Leather, sole, per pound 2 50 " upper, per pound 33 " upper, per pound 3 50
COTTON GOODS.
Osnaburgs, per yard 10 Osnaburgs, per yard 75 Brown cotton, per yard 10 Brown cotton, per yard 75 Sheeting, per yard 15 Sheeting, per yard 1 25
WOOLEN GOODS.
Coarse jeanes 45 Coarse jeanes 4 00 Crenshaw's gray 2 00 Crenshaw's gray 28 00
MISCELLANEOUS.
Coarse shoes $1 50 Coarse shoes $15 00 High-quartered shoes 3 50 High-quartered shoes 25 00 Boots 7 50 Boots 60 00 Wool hats, per dozen 7 00 Wool hats, per dozen 50 00
STOCKS.
Dividends on stocks in cotton companies, worth in May, 1861, $25 to $50 per share, now from $112 to $140.
It is doubtful whether the bill will pass, as most of the members are agriculturists.
It is said and believed that several citizens from Illinois and Indiana, now in this city, have been sent hither by influential parties, to consult our government on the best means of terminating the war; or, that failing, to propose some mode of adjustment between the Northwestern States and the Confederacy, and new combination against the Yankee States and the Federal administration.
Burnside has at last been removed; and Franklin and Sumner have resigned. Gen. Hooker now commands the Federal Army of the Potomac--if it may be still called an army. Gen. R----, who knows Hooker well, says he is deficient in talent and character; and many years ago gentlemen refused to associate with him. He resigned from the army, in California, and worked a potatoe patch, Yankee like, on speculation--and failed.
FEBRUARY 2D.--After the feat at Charleston, Gen. Beauregard and Commodore Ingraham invited the consuls resident to inspect the harbor, and they pronounced the blockade raised, no United States ship being seen off the coast. Then the general and the commodore issued a proclamation to the world that the port was open. If this be recognized, then the United States will have to give sixty days' notice before the port can be closed again to neutral powers; and by that time we can get supplies enough to suffice us for a year. Before night, however, some twenty blockaders were in sight of the bar. It is not a question of right, or of might, with France and England--but of inclination. Whenever they, or either of them, shall be disposed to relieve us, it can be done.
There was a fight near Suffolk yesterday, and it is reported that our troops repulsed the enemy.
The enemy's gun-boats returned to the bombardment of Fort McAlister, and met no success. They were driven off. But still, I fear the fort must succumb.
Senator Saulsbury, of Delaware, has been arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate, for his denunciation of Lincoln as an "imbecile." And a Philadelphia editor has been imprisoned for alleged "sympathy with secessionists." These arrests signify more battles--more blood.
FEBRUARY 3D.--It appears that Gen. Pryor's force, 1500 strong, was attacked by the enemy, said to be 5000 in number, on the Blackwater. After some shelling and infantry firing, Gen. P. retired some eight miles, and was not pursued. Our loss was only fifty; it is said the enemy had 500 killed and wounded; but I know not how this was ascertained.
Gold in the North now brings 58-1/2 cents premium. Exchange sells at $1.75. Cotton at 96 cents per pound!
They are getting up a fine rumpus in the North over the imprisonment of an editor.
To-day, when conversing with Judge Perkins in relation to having a passport system established by law, he admitted the necessity, but despaired of its accomplishment. "For," said he, "nothing can be done in Congress which has not the sanction of the Executive." He meant, I thought, from his manner and tone, that the Executive branch of the government was omnipotent, having swallowed up the functions of the other co-ordinate branches. I cannot understand this, for the Executive has but little appointing patronage, the army being completely organized, having supplementary generals, and all officers, under the grade of brigadiers, being promoted as vacancies occur.
FEBRUARY 4TH.--One of the enemy's iron-clad gun-boats has got past our batteries at Vicksburg. Gen. Pemberton says it was struck "three times." But it is through.
The enemy's presses reiterate the assertion that Gen. Longstreet is in Tennessee with his corps; and that the detachments from Gen. Lee's army amount to 75,000 men. This is evidently for the purpose to encourage Hooker's army to cross the Rappahannock. These presses must know that Gen. Lee's whole army was less than 75,000 men; that Longstreet is still with him, and that only one small brigade has been sent away to North Carolina. Well, let them come! They will be annihilated. But is it not diabolical in the New York Post, Times, etc. to urge their own people on to certain destruction? If Hooker had 300,000, he could not now come to Richmond!
We have extremely cold weather now; and, probably, the rivers in Virginia will be frozen over to-night.
FEBRUARY 5TH.--It snowed again last night. Tuesday night the mercury was 8 deg. below zero.
A dispatch from Gen. Beauregard says sixty sail of the enemy have left Beaufort, N. C., for Charleston. A British frigate (Cadmus) has arrived at Charleston with intelligence that the Federal fleet of gun-boats will attack the city immediately; and that the British consul is ordered away by the Minister at Washington. The attack will be by sea and land. God help Beauregard in this fearful ordeal!
FEBRUARY 6TH.--Gen. Lee thinks Charleston will be assailed, and suggests that all the troops in North Carolina be concentrated near Wilmington, and he will undertake the defense of the rest of the State. Nevertheless, if the government deems it more important to have his troops sent to North Carolina, than to retain them for the defense of Richmond, he must acquiesce. But he thinks Hooker will attempt the passage of the Rappahannock, at an early day, if the weather will admit of it. In regard to the last attempt of Burnside to cross his army (when he stuck in the mud), Gen. Lee says it was fortunate for the Federals that they failed to get over. No doubt he was prepared for their reception.
Congress is doing nothing but voting money for themselves. The President (some of the members say) is their master, and they await his nod. These are his enemies.
FEBRUARY 7TH.--We have a dispatch from Texas, of another success of Gen. Magruder at Sabine Pass, wherein he destroyed a large amount of the enemy's stores.
But we are calmly awaiting the blow at Charleston, or at Savannah, or wherever it may fall. We have confidence in Beauregard.
We are more anxious regarding the fate of Vicksburg. Northern man as he is, if Pemberton suffers disaster by any default, he will certainly incur the President's eternal displeasure. Mississippi must be defended, else the President himself may feel the pangs of a refugee.
"That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me!"
FEBRUARY 8TH.--From intelligence received yesterday evening, it is probable the Alabama, Harriet Lane, and Florida have met off the West Indies, and turned upon the U. S. steamer Brooklyn. The account says a large steamer was seen on fire, and three others were delivering broadsides into her. The United States press thought the burning steamer was the Florida.
From Charleston or Savannah we shall soon have stirring news. They may overpower our forces, but our power there will be completely exhausted before resistance ceases. There will be no more "giving up," as with New Orleans, Norfolk, etc. Yet there is a feverish anxiety regarding Vicksburg. Pemberton permitted one iron-clad gun-boat to pass, and all our boats below are now at its mercy.
The House of Representatives, at Washington, has passed the "negro soldier bill." This will prove a "Pandora's Box," and the Federals may rue the day that such a measure was adopted.
FEBRUARY 9TH.--Gen. Lee requests that all dispatches passing between his headquarters and the War Department be in cipher. He says everything of importance communicated, he has observed, soon becomes the topic of public conversation; and thence is soon made known to the enemy.
The iron-clad gun-boat, which got past Vicksburg, has been up the Red River spreading devastation. It has taken three of our steamers, forty officers on one, and captured large amounts of stores and cotton.
Gen. Wise made a dash into Williamsburg last night, and captured the place, taking some prisoners.
Custis (my son) received a letter to-day from Miss G., Newbern, via underground railroad, inclosing another for her sweet-heart in the army. She says they are getting on tolerably well in the hands of the enemy, though the slaves have been emancipated. She says a Yankee preacher (whom she calls a white-washed negro) made a speculation. He read the Lincoln Proclamation to the negroes: and then announced that none of them had been legally married, and might be liable to prosecution. To obviate this, he proposed to marry them over, charging only a dollar for each couple. He realized several thousand dollars, and then returned to the North. This was a legitimate Yankee speculation; and no doubt the preacher will continue to be an enthusiastic advocate of a war of subjugation. As long as the Yankees can make money by it, and escape killing, the war will continue.
FEBRUARY 10TH.--No stirring news yet. The enemy's fleet is at Port Royal, S. C. Everywhere we are menaced with overwhelming odds. Upon God, and our own right arms, we must rely, and we do rely.
To-day, in cabinet council, it is believed it was decided to call out all conscripts under forty-five years of age. The President might have done it without consulting the cabinet.
Yesterday Mrs. Goddin, the owner or wife of the owner of the house I occupy, failing to get board in the country, and we having failed to get another house, took possession of one room of the little cottage. We have temporarily the rest: parlor, dining-room, and two chambers--one of them 8 by 11--at the rate of $800 per annum. This is low, now; for ordinary dwellings, without furniture, rent for $1800. Mr. G. has an hereditary (I believe) infirmity of the mind, and is confined by his father in an asylum. Mrs. G. has four little children, the youngest only a few weeks old. She has a white nurse, who lost her only child (died of scarlet fever) six days ago; her husband being in the army. It is a sad spectacle.
To-day beef was selling in market at one dollar per pound. And yet one might walk for hours in vain, in quest of a beggar. Did such a people ever exist before?
FEBRUARY 11TH.--There is a rumor that Major-Gen. Gustavus W. Smith has tendered his resignation.
Some idea may be formed of the scarcity of food in this city from the fact that, while my youngest daughter was in the kitchen to-day, a young rat came out of its hole and seemed to beg for something to eat; she held out some bread, which it ate from her hand, and seemed grateful. Several others soon appeared, and were as tame as kittens. Perhaps we shall have to eat them!
FEBRUARY 12TH.--Congress has not yet restricted the class of exempts, and the work of conscription drags heavily along. All under forty-five must be called, else the maximum of the four hundred regiments cannot be kept up. It reminds me of Jack Falstaff's mode of exemption. The numerous employees of the Southern Express Co. have been let off, after transporting hither, for the use of certain functionaries, sugars, etc. from Alabama. And so in the various States, enrolling and other officers are letting thousands of conscripts slip through their hands.
FEBRUARY 13TH.--There is a rumor in the papers that something like a revolution is occurring, or has occurred, in the West; and it is stated that the Federal troops demand the recall of the Emancipation Proclamation. They also object to serving with negro troops.
But we ought to look for news of terrific fighting at Savannah or Charleston. No doubt all the troops in the field (Federal) or on the water will be hurled against us before long, so as to effect as much injury as possible before defection can spread extensively, and before the expiration of the enlistments of some 200,000 men in May.
And what are we doing? But little. The acceptance of substitutes who desert, and the exemption of thousands who should be fighting for the country, employ hundreds of pens daily in this city. Alas, that so many dishonest men have obtained easy places! The President has been grossly imposed upon.
FEBRUARY 14TH.--A beautiful day. Yet Gen. Lee is giving furloughs, two to each company. If the weather should be dry, perhaps Hooker will advance: a thing desired by our people, being confident of his destruction.
The papers issued extras to-day with news from the Northwest, based upon the account of a "reliable gentleman," who has just run the blockade. He says Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois have resolved to meet in convention, at Frankfort, Ky., for the purpose of seceding from the United States, and setting up a confederacy for themselves, or joining the Southern Confederacy. I fear the "reliable gentleman" is not to be relied upon. Yet it would be well for the Western States, a just retribution to New England, and a very great relief to us.
Gen. Lee is urging the department to have the meat at Atlanta brought to his army without delay. It is here the army will be wanted.
I saw pigs to-day, not six weeks old, selling in market at $10 a piece.
I met Col. Bledsoe to-day, on a visit to the city, who told me Fenelon never tasted meat, and lived to be ninety years old. I am no Fenelon, but I shall probably have to adopt his regimen. I would barter, however, some of his years for a good supply of food. We must have peace soon, or a famine.
FEBRUARY 15TH.--Already, as if quite certain that the great Northwest would speedily withdraw from the Eastern United States, our people are discussing the eventualities of such a momentous occurrence. The most vehement opposition to the admission of any of the non-slaveholding States, whose people have invaded our country and shed the blood of our people, into this Confederacy, is quite manifest in this city. But Virginia, "the Old Mother," would, I think, after due hesitation, take back her erring children, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and perhaps one or two more, if they earnestly desired to return to her parental protection.
Some of the Cotton States might revolt at such a project, and even the cabinet might oppose the scheme of adding several powerful free States to the Confederacy; but it would not all suffice to prevent it, if they desire to join us. It is true, the constitution would have to be modified, for it is not to be supposed that slaves would be held in any of the States referred to; but then slavery would be recognized by its proper term, and ample guarantees would be agreed upon by the great free States which abandon the United States on the issue of emancipation.
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, added to the thirteen Confederate States, would speedily constitute us a people of sufficient military power to defy the menaces of the arms of the greatest powers of the earth; and the commercial and agricultural prosperity of the country would amaze the world.
I am of the opinion that Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri would form a league of union with Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, even if the rest of the Southern States were to reject the alliance. But who can foresee the future through the smoke of war, and amid the clash of bayonets? Nevertheless, division and subdivision, would relieve all of the burden of debt, for they would repudiate the greater part, if not the whole, of the indebtedness of both the present governments, which has been incurred in ravaging the country and cutting each other's throats. The cry will be: "We will not pay the price of blood--for the slaughter of our brothers!"
FEBRUARY 16TH.--Another gun-boat has got past Vicksburg. But three British steamers have run into Charleston with valuable cargoes.
Gen. Lee is now sending troops to Charleston, and this strengthens the report that Hooker's army is leaving the Rappahannock. They are probably crumbling to pieces, under the influence of the peace party growing up in the North. Some of them, however, it is said, are sent to Fortress Monroe.
Our Bureau of Conscription ought to be called the Bureau of Exemption. It is turning out a vast number of exempts. The Southern Express Company bring sugar, partridges, turkeys, etc. to the potential functionaries, and their employees are exempted during the time they may remain in the employment of the company. It is too bad!
I have just been reperusing Frederick's great campaigns, and find much encouragement. Prussia was not so strong as the Confederate States, and yet was environed and assailed by France, Austria, Russia, and several smaller powers simultaneously. And yet Frederick maintained the contest for seven years, and finally triumphed over his enemies. The preponderance of numbers against him in the field was greater than that of the United States against us; and Lee is as able a general as Frederick. Hence we should never despair.
FEBRUARY 17TH.--Gen. Lee is not sending troops to Charleston. He is sending them here for the defense of Richmond, which is now supposed to be the point of attack, by land and by water, and on both sides of the James River. Well, they have striven to capture this city from every point of the compass but one--the south side. Perhaps they will make an attempt from that direction; and I must confess that I have always apprehended the most danger from that quarter. But we shall beat them, come whence they may!
FEBRUARY 18TH.--Mr. H----s, another of Gen. Winder's detectives, has gone over to the enemy. He went on a privateering cruise from Wilmington; the vessel he sailed in captured a brig, and H----s was put in command of the prize, to sail into a Confederate port. Instead of this, however, H----s sailed away for one of the West India islands, and gave up his prize to Com. Wilkes, of the United States Navy.
One or two of the regiments of Gen. Lee's army were in the city last night. The men were pale and haggard. They have but a quarter of a pound of meat per day. But meat has been ordered from Atlanta. I hope it is abundant there.
All the necessaries of life in the city are still going up higher in price. Butter, $3 per pound; beef, $1; bacon, $1.25; sausage-meat, $1; and even liver is selling at 50 cents per pound.
By degrees, quite perceptible, we are approaching the condition of famine. What effect this will produce on the community is to be seen. The army must be fed or disbanded, or else the city must be abandoned. How we, "the people," are to live is a thought of serious concern.
Gen. Lee has recommended that an appeal be made to the people to bring food to the army, to feed their sons and brothers; but the Commissary-General opposes it; probably it will not be done. No doubt the army could be half fed in this way for months. But the "red tape" men are inflexible and inscrutable. Nevertheless, the commissaries and quartermasters are getting rich.
FEBRUARY 19TH.--The resignation of Gen. Gustavus W. Smith has been accepted by the President. It was well done--the acceptance, I mean. Who will Gen. Winder report to now? Gen. Winder has learned that I am keeping a diary, and that some space in it may be devoted to the history of martial law. He said to Capt. Warner, his commissary of prisons, that he would patronize it. The captain asked me if Gen. Winder's rule was not dwelt upon in it. I said doubtless it was; but that I had not yet revised it, and was never in the habit of perusing my own works until they were completed. Then I carefully corrected them for the press.
Major-Gen. Pickett's division marched through the city to-day for Drewry's Bluff. Gen. Lee writes that this division can beat the army corps of Hooker, supposed to be sent to the Peninsula. It has 12,000 men--an army corps 40,000. Brig.-Gen. Hood's division is near the city, on the Chickahominy. Gen. Lee warns the government to see that Gens. French and Pryor be vigilant, and to have their scouts closely watching the enemy at Suffolk. He thinks, however, the main object of the enemy is to take Charleston; and he suggests that every available man be sent thither. The rest of his army he will keep on the Rappahannock, to watch the enemy still remaining north of that river.
I sent a communication to the President to-day, proposing to reopen my register of "patriotic contributions" to the army, for they are suffering for meat. I doubt whether he will agree to it. If the war be prolonged, the appeal must be to the people to feed the army, or else it will dissolve.
FEBRUARY 20TH.--We have exciting news from the West. The iron-shod gun-boat, Queen of the West, which run past Pemberton's batteries some time since, captured, it appears, one of our steamers in Red River, and then compelled our pilot to steer the Queen of the West farther up the river. The heroic pilot ran the boat under our masked batteries, and then succeeded in escaping by swimming. The Queen of the West was forced to surrender. This adventure has an exhilarating effect upon our spirits.
Hon. James Lyons sent to the President to-day a petition, signed by a majority of the members of Congress, to have me appointed major in the conscription service.
FEBRUARY 21ST.--Major-Gen. Hood's division passed through the city to-day, and crossed over the river. I hope an attack will be made at Suffolk. It is too menacing a position to allow the invader to occupy it longer.
No attack on Charleston yet, and there is a rumor that the command of the expedition is disputed by Foster and Hunter. If it hangs fire, it will be sure to miss the mark.
FEBRUARY 22D.--This is the anniversary of the birth of Washington, and of the inauguration of President Davis, upon the installation of the permanent government of the Confederate States. It is the ugliest day I ever saw. Snow fell all night, and was falling fast all day, with a northwest wind howling furiously. The snow is now nearly a foot deep, and the weather very cold.
My communication to the President, proposing an appeal to the people to furnish the army with meat and clothing (voluntary contributions), was transmitted to the Secretary of War yesterday, without remark, other than the simple reference. The plan will not be adopted, in all probability, for the Secretary will consult the Commissary and Quartermaster-General, and they will oppose any interference with the business of their departments. Red tape will win the day, even if our cause be lost. Our soldiers must be fed and clothed according to the "rules and regulations," or suffer and perish for the want of food and clothing!
I have some curiosity to learn what the President has indorsed, or may indorse, on the paper sent him by Mr. Lyons, signed by half the members of Congress. Will he simply refer it to the Secretary? Then what will the Secretary do? My friends in Congress will likewise be curious to learn the result.
FEBRUARY 23D.--I saw a letter from Gen. Lee to-day, suggesting to the government on appeal to the Governors of the States to aid more directly in recruiting the armies. He says the people habitually expect too much from the troops now in the field; that because we have gained many victories, it does not follow that we shall always gain them; that the legitimate fruits of victory have hitherto been lost, for the want of numbers on our side; and, finally, that all those who fail to go to the field at such a momentous period as this, are guilty of the blood of the brave soldiers who perish in the effort to achieve independence.
This would be contrary to the "rules and regulations" as understood by the Adjutant and Inspector-General (a Northern man), and no doubt the Secretary of War and the President will reject the plan.
The petition of forty members of Congress in my behalf came from Mr. Seddon, the Secretary, to our bureau to-day. He asks the superintendent if there is a necessity for such an officer, one whose rank is equal to that of a commandant of a camp of instruction. He says important services only should require the appointment of such an officer. Well, Gen. Rains recommended it. I know not whether he can say more. I shall not get it, for Congress has but little influence, just now.
FEBRUARY 24TH.--Gen. Longstreet is now in command of Gen. Smith's late department, besides his own corps. Richmond is safe.
Our papers contain a most astonishing speech purporting to have been delivered by Mr. Conway, in the United States Congress. Mr. C. is from Kansas, that hot-bed of Abolitionism. He is an avowed Abolitionist; and yet he advocates an immediate suspension of hostilities, or at least that the Federal armies and fleets be ordered to act on the defensive; that the independence of the Confederate States be recognized, upon the basis of a similar tariff; free-trade between the North and South; free navigation of the Mississippi, and co-operation in the maintenance of the Monroe doctrine. I like the indications apparent in this speech. Let us have a suspension of hostilities, and then we can have leisure to think of the rest. No doubt the peace party is growing rapidly in the United States; and it may be possible that the Republicans mean to beat the Democrats in the race, by going beyond them on the Southern question. The Democrats are for peace and Union; the Republicans may resolve to advocate not only peace, but secession.
FEBRUARY 25TH.--On the 18th inst. the enemy's battery on the opposite side of the Mississippi River opened on Vicksburg. The damage was not great; but the front of the town is considered untenable.
The Conscription bill has passed the United States Senate, which will empower the President to call for 3,000,000 men. "Will they come, when he does call for them?" That is to be seen. It may be aimed at France; and a war with the Emperor might rouse the Northern people again. Some of them, however, have had enough of war.
To-day I heard of my paper addressed to the President on the subject of an appeal to the people to send food to the army. He referred it to the Commissary-General, Col. Northrop, who sent it to the War Department, with an indorsement that as he had no acquaintance with that means of maintaining an army (the patriotic contributions of the people), he could not recommend the adoption of the plan. Red tape is mightier than patriotism still. There may be a change, however, for Gen. Lee approves the plan.
FEBRUARY 26TH.--We have good news from Vicksburg to-day. The Queen of the West, lately captured by us, and another gun-boat, attacked the Indianola, the iron-clad Federal gun-boat which got past our batteries the other day, and, after an engagement, sunk her. We captured all the officers and men.
FEBRUARY 27TH.--No news from any quarter to-day.
Gen. Joseph E. Johnston is discontented with his command in the West. The armies are too far asunder for co-operative action; and, when separated, too weak for decisive operations. There is no field there for him, and he desires to be relieved, and assigned to some other command.
I was surprised to receive, to-day, the following very official letter from the Secretary of War:
"RICHMOND, VA., Feb. 27th, 1863.
"J. B. JONES, ESQ.
"SIR:--The President has referred your letter of the 19th inst. to this department.
"In reply, you are respectfully informed that it is not deemed judicious, unless in the last extremity, to resort to the means of supply suggested. The patriotic motives that dictated the suggestion are, however, appreciated and acknowledged.
"Your obedient servant,
"JAMES A. SEDDON,
"Secretary of War."
Chapter XXIV
Removed into Clay Street.--Gen. Toombs resigned.--Lincoln dictator.--He can call 3,000,000 of men.--President is sick.--His office is not a bed of roses.--Col. Gorgas sends in his oath of allegiance.-- Confederate gold $5 for $1.--Explosion of a laboratory.--Bad weather everywhere.--Fighting on the Mississippi River.--Conflict of views in the Conscription Bureau.--Confederate States currency $10 for $1.-- Snow a foot deep, but melting.--We have no negro regiments in our service.--Only 6000 conscripts from East Tennessee.--How seven were paroled by one.--This is to be the crisis campaign.--Lee announces the campaign open.
MARCH 1ST.--To-morrow we remove to new quarters. The lady's husband, owning cottage, and who was confined for seven months among lunatics, has returned, and there is not room for two families. Besides, Mrs. G. thinks she can do better taking boarders, than by letting the house. What a mistake! Beef sold yesterday for $1.25 per pound; turkeys, $15. Corn-meal $6 per bushel, and all other articles at the same rates. No salaries can board families now; and soon the expense of boarding will exceed the incomes of unmarried men. Owners and tenants, unless engaged in lucrative business, must soon vacate their houses and leave the city.
But we have found a house occupied by three widows in Clay Street. They have no children. They mean to board soon among their relatives or friends, and then we get the house; in the mean time, they have fitted up two rooms for us. We should have gone yesterday, but the weather was too bad. The terms will not exceed the rent we are now paying, and the house is larger. I espied several fruit trees in the back yard, and a space beyond, large enough for a smart vegetable garden. How delighted I shall be to cultivate it myself! Always I have visions of peas, beans, radishes, potatoes, corn, and tomatoes of my own raising! God bless the widows sent for our relief in this dire necessity!
Met Judge Reagan yesterday, just from the Council Board. I thought he seemed dejected. He said if the enemy succeeded in getting command of the Mississippi River, the Confederacy would be "cut in two;" and he intimated his preference of giving up Richmond, if it would save Texas, etc. for the Confederacy. Texas is his adopted State.
MARCH 2D.--The enemy burnt the steamship Nashville on Saturday near Savannah. She was employed taking provisions to Fort McAlister. I think it was destroyed by an incendiary shell.
There is a rumor to-day of the burning of railroad bridges between this and Fredericksburg.
I signed an agreement to-day with Mr. Malsby to publish my new "Wild Western Scenes." He is to print 10,000 copies, which are to retail at $2; on this he pays me 12-1/2 per cent. or 25 cents for every copy sold; $2500 if the whole are sold. He will not be able to get it out before May.
We moved into the west end of Clay Street to-day, and like the change. There are no children here except our own. The house is a brick one, and more comfortable than the frame shell we abandoned.
MARCH 3D.--We like our new quarters--and the three Samaritan widows, without children. They lend us many articles indispensable for our comfort. It is probable they will leave us soon in the sole occupancy of the house. There is ground enough for a good many vegetables--and meat is likely to be scarce enough. Bacon is now $1.37-1/2 cts. per pound, and flour $30 per barrel. The shadow of the gaunt form of famine is upon us! But the pestilence of small-pox is abating.
We have now fine March weather; but the floods of late have damaged the railroad bridges between this and Fredericksburg. The Secretary of War requested the editors, yesterday, to say nothing of this. We have no news from the West or from the Southeast--but we shall soon have enough.
The United States Congress has passed the Conscription Act. We shall see the effect of it in the North; I predict civil war there; and that will be our "aid and comfort."
Gen. Toombs has resigned; and it is said Pryor has been made a major-general. Thus we go up and down. The President has issued a proclamation for prayer, fasting, etc., on the twenty-seventh of this month. There will certainly be fasting--and prayer also. And God has helped us, or we should have been destroyed ere this.
MARCH 4TH.--The enemy bombarded Fort McAlister again yesterday, several gun-boats opening fire on it. It lasted all day; during which one of the iron-clads retired, perhaps injured. We had only two men wounded and one gun (8 in. columbiad) dismounted. The fort was but little injured.
Recent Northern papers assert that their gun-boats have all passed through the canal opposite Vicksburg. This is not true--yet.
Lincoln is now Dictator, his Congress having given him power to call out all the male population between the ages of twenty and thirty-five years, and authority to declare martial law whenever he pleases. The Herald shouts for Lincoln--of course. We must fight and pray, and hope for revolution and civil war in the North, which may occur any day.
Our cavalry, under Gen. Jones, has done some brilliant skirmishing recently in the vicinity of Winchester; and as soon as the March winds dry the earth a little, I suppose Hooker will recommence the "On to Richmond." We shall be weaker the next campaign, but our men are brave.
MARCH 5TH.--Yesterday the government seized the flour in the mills and warehouses; and now the price has risen from $30 to $40 per barrel. I wrote to the Commissary, in view of the dissatisfaction of the people, and to prevent disturbances, advising him to seize the 5000 barrels in the hands of the small speculators, and to allow so many pounds per month to each inhabitant, at the rate paid by government. This would be beneficent and popular, confining the grumblers to the extortioners. But he will not do it, as the Constitution only provides for impressments for the public use.
Our dinner to-day (for seven, for the servant has an equal share) consisted of twelve eggs, $1.25; a little corn bread, some rice and potatoes. How long shall we have even this variety and amount? Bad beef in market, this morning, sold at $1.25 per pound.
After bombarding Fort McAlister on the 3d inst. and all night, the enemy's fire ceased. The fort was not much injured, says the dispatch. There is a rumor to-day that the fort has been reduced--but no one believes it.
Gen. Van Dorn has had a fight in Tennessee, killing and wounding 1000 and capturing 2600 prisoners. Our loss is said to have been heavy.
Gen. Lee writes that now, since Lincoln may call out 3,000,000 men, and has $900,000,000 voted him, we must put out all our strength, if we expect to keep the field. We shall certainly have an exciting time. But there may be use for some of the Federal troops in the North! If not, I apprehend that Richmond must withstand another siege and assault. It is said they have dropped the "Constitution and the Union" in the United States, and raised the cry of the "NATION" and the "FLAG." This alarms me. If they get up a new sensation, they will raise new armies.
Gold is selling at a premium of $4.25 in Confederate notes.
We bought a barrel of flour to-day (that is, my wife paid for one not yet delivered), from a dealer who was not an extortioner, for the moderate sum of $28.00. This, with what we have on hand, ought to suffice until the growing wheat matures.
For tea we had meal coffee, and corn cakes without butter. But we had a half-pint of molasses (for seven) which cost 75 cts. The gaunt specter is approaching nearer every day!
Every morning there is a large crowd of Irish and Germans besieging Gen. Winder's office for passports to go North. Is it famine they dread, or a desire to keep out of the war? Will they not be conscripted in the North? They say they can get consular protection there.
MARCH 6TH.--I have meditated on this day, as the anniversary of my birth, and the shortening lapse of time between me and eternity. I am now fifty-three years of age. Hitherto I have dismissed from my mind, if not with actual indifference, yet with far more unconcern than at present, the recurring birthdays which plunged me farther in the vale of years. But now I cannot conceal from myself, if so disposed, that I am getting to be an old man. My hair is gray--but nevertheless my form is still erect, and my step is brisk enough. My fancies, tastes, and enjoyments have not changed perceptibly; and I can and often do write without glasses. I desire to live after this war is over, if it be the will of God--if not, I hope to exist in a better world.
We have no news of interest to-day. A letter says the non-combatants, even the women and children, heedless of danger, were voluntary spectators of the bombardment of Vicksburg the other day. The shells often exploded near them, and behind them, but the fascination was so great that they remained on the ground; even one had an arm carried away by a ball! Can such a people be subjugated?
Houses (furnished) are beginning to be offered more plentifully than ever before; their occupants and owners finding their ordinary incomes insufficient for subsistence. I suppose they mean to find in the country an escape from famine prices prevailing in the city.
There is a rumor this evening of the fall of Vicksburg; but that rumor has been whispered here several times during the last few months. No one believes it. When Vicksburg falls, many an invader will perish in its ruins.
MARCH 7TH.--The President is sick, and has not been in the Executive Office for three days. Gen. Toombs, resigned, has published a farewell address to his brigade. He does not specify of what his grievance consists; but he says he cannot longer hold his commission with honor. The President must be aware of his perilous condition. When in adversity, some of those he has trusted, discuss the bases of reconstruction; and when we are prosperous, others, in similar positions, agitate the question of reorganization--the motive of both being his ruin. But I suppose he has calculated these contingencies, and never anticipated paving a bed of roses to recline upon during the terrible, and sometimes doubtful struggle for independence.
The rumor that Vicksburg had fallen is not confirmed; on the contrary, the story that the Indianola, captured from the enemy, and reported to have been blown up, was unfounded. We have Gen. Pemberton's official assurance of this.
Col. Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance, a Pennsylvanian, sent into the department to-day, with a request that it be filed, his oath of allegiance to this government, and renunciation of that of the United States, and of his native State. This would indicate that the location of his nativity has been the subject of remark. What significance is to be attributed to this step at this late day, I know not, and care not. An error was committed in placing Northern men in high positions to the exclusion of Southern men, quite as capable of filling them.
MARCH 8TH.--Judge Meredith's opinion, that foreigners, Marylanders, and others, who have served in the army, have become domiciled, and are liable to conscription, has produced a prodigious commotion. Gen. Winder's door is beset with crowds of eager seekers of passports to leave the Confederacy; and as these people are converting their Confederate money into gold, the premium on specie has advanced.
Judge Campbell, Assistant Secretary of War, has decided that Judge Meredith's opinion is not authority; and hence his son-in-law, Lieut.-Col. Lay, who at present wields the Conscription Bureau, acts accordingly. But Gen. Rains has a contrary opinion; and he intended to see the President yesterday, who is understood to coincide with Judge Meredith. It is also alleged that Secretary Seddon concurs in this opinion; and if this be the case, an explosion is imminent--for Judge Campbell must have given instructions "by order of the Secretary," without the Secretary's knowledge or consent.
I advised the general to see the President and Secretary once a week, and not rely upon verbal instructions received through a subordinate; he said the advice was good, and he should follow it. But he is much absorbed in his subterrene batteries.
MARCH 9TH.--We have no news to-day. But the next act of this terrible drama is near at hand. The Northern papers have reports of the fall of Vicksburg and Charleston. Unfounded. They also say 22,000 men have deserted from the Army of the Potomac. This is probably true.
There is much denunciation of the recent seizure of flour; but this is counteracted by an appalling intimation in one of the papers that unless the army be subsisted, it will be withdrawn from the State, and Virginia must fall into the hands of the enemy. The loss of Virginia might be the loss of the Confederacy.
MARCH 10TH.--No war news of importance.
Just at this time there is a large number of persons passing to and from the North. They are ostensibly blockade-runners, and they do succeed in bringing from the enemy's country a large amount of goods, on which an enormous profit is realized. The Assistant Secretary of War, his son-in-law, Lt.-Col. Lay, the controlling man in the Bureau of Conscription, and, indeed, many heads of bureaus, have received commodities from Maryland, from friends running the blockade. Gen. Winder himself, and his Provost Marshal Griswold (how much that looks like a Yankee name!), and their police detectives, have reaped benefit from the same source. But this intercourse with the enemy is fraught with other matters. Communications are made by the disloyal to the enemy, and our condition--bad enough, heaven knows!--is made known, and hence the renewed efforts to subjugate us. This illicit intercourse, inaugurated under the auspices of Mr. Benjamin, and continued by subsequent Ministers of War, may be our ruin, if we are destined to destruction. Already it has unquestionably cost us thousands of lives and millions of dollars. I feel it a duty to make this record.
To-day we have a violent snow-storm--a providential armistice.
It has been ascertained that Hooker's army is still near the Rappahannock, only some 20,000 or 30,000 having been sent to the Peninsula and to Suffolk. No doubt he will advance as soon as the roads become practicable. If Hooker has 150,000 men, and advances soon, Gen. Lee cannot oppose his march; and in all probability we shall again hear the din of war, from this city, in April and May. The fortifications are strong, however, and 25,000 men may defend the city against 100,000--provided we have subsistence. The great fear is famine. But hungry men will fight desperately. Let the besiegers beware of them!
We hope to have nearly 400,000 men in the field in May, and I doubt whether the enemy will have over 500,000 veterans at the end of that month. Their new men will not be in fighting condition before July. We may cross the Potomac again.
MARCH 11TH.--Gen. Fitzhugh Lee has made a dash into Fairfax (near Washington) a day or two ago, and captured the Federal Gen. Slaughter and other officers, in their beds.
Last night one of the government warehouses in this city was burnt. It is supposed to have been the work of an incendiary traitor; perhaps in retaliation for the recent impressment of flour. Yesterday the lower house of Congress passed a resolution restricting impressments. This has a bad aspect.
The Bureau of Conscription, to-day, under the direction of Col. Lay, decided that all clerks in the departments, appointed subsequent to the eleventh of October last, are liable to be enrolled for service. Yet the colonel himself has a clerk appointed in January last.
Gold sells at $5 in Confederate States notes for one; U. S. Treasury notes are at a premium here of $2.50. Even the notes of our State banks are at 60 per cent. premium over Confederate notes. This is bad for Mr. Memminger. An abler financier would have worked out a different result.
All the patriotism is in the army; out of it the demon avarice rages supreme. Every one seems mad with speculation; and the extortioners prey upon every victim that falls within their power. Nearly all who sell are extortioners. We have at the same time, and in the same community, spectacles of the most exalted virtue and of the most degrading vice.
Col. Mattel, the former commandant of conscripts for North Carolina, who was wounded at Kinston, and yet was superseded by Col. Lay's friend, Col. August, is now to be restored, and Col. A. relieved. Upon this Col. L. has fallen sick.
Mr. Duffield, whom Col. Lay and Mr. Jacques had appointed A. A. G. over me, has not yet, for some cause, got his commission. The Secretary or some one else may have "intervened."
MARCH 12TH.--To-day we have no army news.
Mr. Richard Smith issued the first number of The Sentinel yesterday morning. Thus we have five daily morning papers, all on half sheets. The Sentinel has a biography of the President, and may aspire to be the "organ."
John Mitchel, the Irishman, who was sentenced to a penal colony for disturbances in Ireland, some years ago, is now the leading editor of the Enquirer. He came hither from the North recently. His "compatriot," Meagher, once lived in the South and advocated our "institutions." He now commands a Federal brigade. What Mitchel will do finally, who knows? My friend R. Tyler, probably, had something to do with bringing him here. As a politician, however, he must know there is no Irish element in the Confederate States. I am sorry this Irish editor has been imported.
The resignation of Gen. Toombs is making some sensation in certain circles. He was among the foremost leaders of the rebellion. He was Secretary of State, and voluntarily resigned to enter the army. I know not precisely what his grievance is, unless it be the failure of the President to promote him to a higher position, which he may have deemed himself entitled to, from his genius, antecedents, wealth, etc. But it is probable he will cause some disturbance. Duff Green, who is everywhere in stormy times, told me to-day that Gen. Toombs would be elected Governor of Georgia this fall, and said there were intimations that Georgia might make peace with the United States! This would be death to the government--and destruction to Toombs. It must be a mistake. He cannot have any such design. If he had, it would be defeated by the people of Georgia, though they sighed for peace. Peace is what all most desire--but not without independence. Some there are, in all the States, who would go back into the Union, for the sake of repose and security. But a majority would not have peace on such terms.
Still, it behooves the President to be on his guard. He has enemies in the South, who hate him much.
MARCH 13TH.--To-day a great calamity occurred in this city. In a large room of one of the government laboratories an explosion took place, killing instantly five or six persons, and wounding, it is feared fatally, some thirty others. Most of them were little indigent girls!
MARCH 14TH.--Gen. Pemberton writes that he has 3000 hogs-heads of sugar at Vicksburg, which he retains for his soldiers to subsist on when the meat fails. Meat is scarce there as well as here. Bacon now sells for $1.50 per pound in Richmond. Butter $3. I design to cultivate a little garden 20 by 50 feet; but fear I cannot get seeds. I have sought in vain for peas, beans, corn, and tomatoes seeds. Potatoes are $12 per bushel. Ordinary chickens are worth $3 a piece. My youngest daughter put her earrings on sale to-day--price $25; and I think they will bring it, for which she can purchase a pair of shoes. The area of subsistence is contracting around us; but my children are more enthusiastic for independence than ever. Daily I hear them say they would gladly embrace death rather than the rule of the Yankee. If all our people were of the same mind, our final success would be certain.
This day the leading article in the Examiner had a striking, if not an ominous conclusion. Inveighing against the despotism of the North, the editor takes occasion likewise to denounce the measure of impressment here. He says if our Congress should follow the example of the Northern Congress, and invest our President with dictatorial powers, a reconstruction of the Union might be a practicable thing; for our people would choose to belong to a strong despotism rather than a weak one--the strong one being of course the United States with 20,000,000, rather than the Confederate States with 8,000,000. There may be something in this, but we shall be injured by it; for the crowd going North will take it thither, where it will be reproduced, and stimulate the invader to renewed exertions. It is a dark hour. But God disposes. If we deserve it, we shall triumph; if not, why should we?
But we cannot fail without more great battles; and who knows what results may be evolved by them? Gen. Lee is hopeful; and so long as we keep the field, and he commands, the foe must bleed for every acre of soil they gain.
MARCH 15TH.--Another cold, disagreeable day. March so far has been as cold and terrible as a winter month.
MARCH 16TH.--Gen. Hill is moving toward Newbern, N. C., and may attack the enemy there.
The weather continues dreadful--sleeting; and movements of armies must perforce be stayed. But the season of slaughter is approaching.
There was an ominous scantiness of supply in the market this morning, and the prices beyond most persons--mine among the rest.
Col. Lay got turkeys to-day from Raleigh; on Saturday partridges, by the Express Company. Fortunate man!
MARCH 17TH.--On Saturday, the enemy's lower Mississippi fleet attacked our batteries at Port Hudson. The result reported is that only one of their gun-boats got past, and that in a damaged condition. The frigate Mississippi, one of the best war steamers of the United States, was burned, and the rest retired down the river, badly repulsed. We sustained no loss.
To-day, the Secretary of War sent in a paper indorsing Judge Meredith's opinion in regard to foreigners who have accepted service in our country, viz., that they are liable to conscription. This is in the teeth of the decision of the Assistant Secretary, Judge Campbell, Col. Lay's father-in-law, and upon which the bureau has been acting, although Gen. Rains, the Superintendent, permitted it with reluctance, upon the assurance of Col. L. that such was the will of the department. This business may produce an explosion.
I walked with Gen. Rains this afternoon in Capitol Square. He is annoyed at the action of Col. Lay in following the instructions of the Assistant Secretary of War in regard to foreigners. The decision had not the sanction of the Secretary of War, Mr. Seddon. He thinks several thousand men may have been permitted to escape military service by it. He intended to lay Judge Campbell's decision before the President, but it disappeared very mysteriously from his desk. And to-day it reappeared just as mysteriously. And, simultaneously, and quite as mysteriously, a paper appeared, signed by Mr. Seddon, Secretary of War, suggesting that the bureau act in conformity with Judge Meredith's opinion, directly in the teeth of Mr. Assistant Secretary Campbell's decision! And it was dated March 13th, full four days before. What delayed it, and who brought it, no one seemed to know. Col. Lay suggested that it be sent back, with an indorsement that the bureau had been already acting under the decision of Judge Campbell (just the reverse of the opinion), Assistant Secretary of War, "by order of the Secretary of War."
To this Gen. R. demurred, and said the bureau would conform its action to Mr. Seddon's suggestions; and he charged a clerk to preserve that paper. Col. L. grumbled awfully at Mr. Seddon's off-hand decision, without mature reflection.
Gen. Stewart (of Maryland) was at the office a short time before, and advocated Mr. Seddon's views; for he knew how many Marylanders would be embraced in the decision, as well as other foreigners.
Lieut.-Col. A. C. Jones, Assistant Adjutant-General, had, in the name of the bureau, notified Gen. Winder, this morning, that Marylanders, etc. were not liable to bear arms for the South after being in the service two years!
The general says he will have all the commandants of conscripts written to immediately; and that he will have an interview with the Secretary of War in relation to the matter.
Every man we can put in the field is demanded; and many fear we shall not have a sufficient number to oppose the overwhelming tide soon to be surging over the land. At such a crisis, and in consideration of all the circumstances attending this matter, involving the loss of so many men, one is naturally startled at Judge Campbell's conduct.
MARCH 18TH.--I sent an extract from my Diary of yesterday to the Hon. T. H. Watts, Minister of Justice. I know not whether he will appreciate its importance; but he has professed friendship for me.
The city is in some excitement to-day, for early this morning we had intelligence of the crossing of the Rappahannock by a portion of the Federal army. During the day the division of Hood defiled through the streets, at a quick pace, marching back to Lee's army. But the march of troops and the rumbling of artillery have ceased to be novel spectacles to our community. Some aged ladies ran out as they passed, calling the bronzed Texans their "children," and distributed loaves of bread and other food among them. I never saw a merrier set than these brave soldiers, who have been through the "fire and the flood" numberless times. Some of them had three or four loaves on their bayonets.
Gen. Lee himself left early this morning, on an extra train, having been "caught napping" here, the first time. The enemy crossed the river yesterday.
But during the day a dispatch was received from Gen. J. E. B. Stuart (cavalry), stating that he had attacked the enemy on this side of the river, and beaten him back, forcing him to recross with loss. The particulars of the fight were not stated; but it is believed we lost a brigadier-general, killed.
MARCH 19TH.--Snowing. It is estimated that we lost 250 men, killed, wounded, and taken, in the fight on the Rappahannock; the enemy's loss is not known, but certainly was heavy, since they were defeated, and fled back, hotly pursued.
Confederate money still depreciates, in spite of the funding act. Some of the brokers are demanding ten dollars Confederate notes for one in gold! That is bad, and it may be worse.
The enemy are advancing from Corinth, and there are not sufficient troops to resist them. Gen. Johnston says if men are taken from Bragg, his army may be destroyed; and none can be ordered from Mobile, where there are only 2500 for land defense.
MARCH 20TH.--The snow is eight inches deep this morning, and it is still falling fast.
Not a beggar is yet to be seen in this city of 100,000 inhabitants!
Hood's division, mostly Texans, whose march to the Rappahannock was countermanded when it was ascertained that the enemy had been beaten back across the river, were all the morning defiling through Main Street, in high spirits, and merrily snowballing each other. And these men slept last night out in the snow without tents! Can such soldiers be vanquished?
Yesterday Floyd's division of State troops were turned over to the Confederacy--only about 200!
We have no further particulars of the fight on the Rappahannock; we know, however, that the enemy were beaten, and that this snow-storm must prevent further operations for many days. Several Eastern Shore families, I learn, are about to return to their homes. This is no place for women and children, who have homes elsewhere. We are all on quarter-rations of meat, and but few can afford to buy clothing at the present prices.
MARCH 21ST.--The snow is nearly a foot deep this morning, as it continued to fall all night, and is falling still. It grows warmer, however.
But we now learn that the Indianola was destroyed in the Mississippi by the officers, upon the appearance of a simulated gun-boat sent down, without a crew! This was disgraceful, and some one should answer for it.
Col. Godwin writes from King and Queen County, that many of the people there are deserting to the enemy, leaving their stock, provisions, grain, etc., and he asks permission to seize their abandoned property for the use of the government. Mr. Secretary Seddon demands more specific information before that step be taken. He intimates that they may have withdrawn to avoid conscription.
MARCH 22D.--It was thawing all night, and there is a heavy fog this morning. The snow will disappear in a few days.
A very large number of slaves, said to be nearly 40,000, have been collected by the enemy on the Peninsula and at adjacent points, for the purpose, it is supposed, of co-operating with Hooker's army in the next attempt to capture Richmond.
The snow has laid an embargo on the usual slight supplies brought to market, and all who had made no provision for such a contingency are subsisting on very short-commons. Corn-meal is selling at from $6 to $8 per bushel. Chickens $5 each. Turkeys $20. Turnip greens $8 per bushel. Bad bacon $1.50 per pound. Bread 20 cts. per loaf. Flour $38 per barrel,--and other things in proportion. There are some pale faces seen in the streets from deficiency of food; but no beggars, no complaints. We are all in rags, especially our underclothes. This for liberty!
The Northern journals say we have negro regiments on the Rappahannock and in the West. This is utterly untrue. We have no armed slaves to fight for us, nor do we fear a servile insurrection. We are at no loss, however, to interpret the meaning of such demoniac misrepresentations. It is to be seen of what value the negro regiments employed against us will be to the invader.
MARCH 23D.--The snow has nearly disappeared, and the roads are very bad. No food is brought to the market, and such as may be found in the city is held at famine prices.
I saw a letter to-day from Bishop Lay, in Arkansas. He says affairs in that State wear a dark and gloomy aspect. He thinks the State is lost.
Gen. Beauregard writes the Hon. Mr. Miles that he has not men enough, nor heavy guns enough, for the defense of Charleston. If this were generally known, thousands would despair, being convinced that those charged with the reins of power are incompetent, unequal to the crisis, and destined to conduct them to destruction rather than independence.
MARCH 24TH.--Judge Lyons has granted an injunction, arresting the impressment of flour by the Secretary of War, and Congress is debating a bill which, if passed, will be a marked rebuke to the government.
Notwithstanding the wishes of the Secretary of War, the President, and Gen. Rains, Lt.-Col. Lay is still exempting Marylanders, and even foreigners who have bought real estate, and resided for years in this country, if they have "not taken the oath of domicile."
In Eastern Tennessee, 25,500 conscripts were enrolled, and yet only 6000 were added to the army. The rest were exempted, detailed, or deserted. Such is the working of the Conscription Act, fettered as it is by the Exemption Law, and still executed under Judge Campbell's decision. Gen. Rains has the title, but does not execute the functions of Superintendent of the Bureau of Conscription. The President has been informed of everything.
MARCH 25TH.--We have no news to-day, excepting the falling back of Rosecrans from Murfreesborough, and a raid of Morgan and capture of a train of cars. Rosecrans means, perhaps, to aid in the occupation of the Mississippi River. It will be expensive in human life.
Although our conscription is odious, yet we are collecting a thousand per week. The enemy say they will crush the rebellion in ninety days. In sixty days half their men will return to their homes, and then we may take Washington. God knows, but man does not, what will happen.
MARCH 26TH.--We have dispatches (unofficial) from the West, stating that one of the enemy's gun-boats has been sunk in attempting to pass Vicksburg, and another badly injured. Also that an engagement has occurred on the Yazoo, the enemy having several gun-boats sunk, the rest being driven back.
It snowed a little this morning, and is now clear and cold.
Mr. Seddon is vexed at the unpopularity of the recent impressments by his order. It was an odious measure, because it did not go far enough and take all, distributing enough among the people to crush the extortioners.
MARCH 27TH.--This is the day appointed by the President for fasting and prayers. Fasting in the midst of famine! May God save this people! The day will be observed throughout the Confederacy.
The news from the West, destruction of more of the enemy's gun-boats, seems authentic. So far we have sustained no disasters this spring, the usual season of success of the enemy by water.
Mr. G. W. Randolph was the counsel of the speculators whose flour was impressed, and yet this man, when Secretary of War, ordered similar impressments repeatedly. "Oh, man! dressed in a little brief authority," etc.
Mr. Foote has brought forward a bill to prevent trading with the enemy. Col. Lay even gets his pipes from the enemy's country. Let Mr. Foote smoke that!
A gentleman said, to-day, if the Yankees only knew it, they might derive all the benefits they seek by the impracticable scheme of subjugation, without the expenditure of human life, by simply redoubling the blockade of our ports, withdrawing their armies to the borders, and facilitating trade between the sections. We would not attack them in their own country, and in a month millions of their products would be pouring into the South, and cotton, tobacco, etc. would go to the North in vast quantities. I wonder the smart Yankee never thinks of this! Let both sides give passports freely, and an unlimited intercourse would be immediately established.
MARCH 28TH.--We have nothing additional or confirmatory from the West. A letter from Gen. Beauregard states that he has but 17,000 men in South Carolina, and 10,000 in Georgia, 27,000 in all. He asks more, as he will be assailed, probably, by 100,000 Federals. The President refers this important letter to the Secretary of War, simply with the indorsement, "this is an exact statement of affairs in South Carolina and Georgia."
Col. Lay predicts that we shall be beaten in thirty days, or else we shall then be in the way of beating the enemy. A safe prediction--but what is his belief? This deponent saith not. There will be fearful odds against us, and yet our men in the field fear nothing.
We are sending Napoleons up to Lee. But the weather, which has been fine for the last two days, is wet again. If Hooker makes a premature advance, he will be sure to "march back again."
An amusing letter was received from an officer in Tennessee to-day. He was taken prisoner by seven Federals when straying some distance from camp, and subsequently hearing the men express some anxiety to be at home again with their families, gave them some brandy which he happened to possess. He then suggested a plan by which they might return to their homes, viz., to become his prisoners, and being paroled by him. After consultation, they agreed to it, and released him. He then paroled them, giving them the usual certificates to exhibit to their officer, and so, taking another drink, they pursued their different ways. If this disposition prevails extensively among the Western Federals, we may look for speedy results in that quarter. Rosecrans may lose his laurels in a most unexpected manner.
MARCH 29TH.--No news. Yet a universal expectation. What is expected is not clearly defined. Those who are making money rapidly no doubt desire a prolongation of the war, irrespective of political consequences. But the people, the majority in the United States, seem to have lost their power. And their representatives in Congress are completely subordinated by the Executive, and rendered subservient to his will. President Lincoln can have any measure adopted or any measure defeated, at pleasure. Such is the irresistible power of enormous executive patronage. He may extend the sessions or terminate them, and so, all power, for the time being, reposes in the hands of the President.
A day of reckoning will come, for the people of the United States will resume the powers of which the war has temporarily dispossessed them, or else there will be disruptions, and civil war will submerge the earth in blood. The time has not arrived, or else the right men have not arisen, for the establishment of despotisms.
Everything depends upon the issues of the present campaign, and upon them it may be bootless to speculate. No one may foretell the fortunes of war--I mean where victory will ultimately perch in this frightful struggle. We are environed and invaded by not less than 600,000 men in arms, and we have not in the field more than 250,000 to oppose them. But we have the advantage of occupying the interior position, always affording superior facilities for concentration. Besides, our men must prevail in combat, or lose their property, country, freedom, everything,--at least this is their conviction. On the other hand, the enemy, in yielding the contest, may retire into their own country, and possess everything they enjoyed before the war began. Hence it may be confidently believed that in all the battles of this spring, when the numbers are nearly equal, the Confederates will be the victors, and even when the enemy have superior numbers, the armies of the South will fight with Roman desperation. The conflict will be appalling and sanguinary beyond example, provided the invader stand up to it. That much is certain. And if our armies are overthrown, we may be no nearer peace than before. The paper money would be valueless, and the large fortunes accumulated by the speculators, turning to dust and ashes on their lips, might engender a new exasperation, resulting in a regenerated patriotism and a universal determination to achieve independence or die in the attempt.
MARCH 30TH.--Gen. Bragg dispatches the government that Gen. Forrest has captured 800 prisoners in Tennessee, and several thousand of our men are making a successful raid in Kentucky.
Gen. Whiting makes urgent calls for reinforcements at Wilmington, and cannot be supplied with many.
Gen. Lee announces to the War Department that the spring campaign is now open, and his army may be in motion any day.
Col. Godwin (of King and Queen County) is here trying to prevail on the Secretary of War to put a stop to the blockade-runners, Jews, and spies, daily passing through his lines with passports from Gens. Elzey and Winder. He says the persons engaged in this illicit traffic are all extortioners and spies, and $50,000 worth of goods from the enemy's country pass daily.
Col. Lay still repudiates Judge Meredith's decision in his instructions to the Commandants of Camps of Instruction. Well, if we have a superabundance of fighting men in the field, the foreign-born denizens and Marylanders can remain at home and make money while the country that protects them is harried by the invader.
The gaunt form of wretched famine still approaches with rapid strides. Meal is now selling at $12 per bushel, and potatoes at $16. Meats have almost disappeared from the market, and none but the opulent can afford to pay $3.50 per pound for butter. Greens, however, of various kinds, are coming in; and as the season advances, we may expect a diminution of prices. It is strange that on the 30th of March, even in the "sunny South," the fruit-trees are as bare of blossoms and foliage as at mid-winter. We shall have fire until the middle of May,--six months of winter!
I am spading up my little garden, and hope to raise a few vegetables to eke out a miserable subsistence for my family. My daughter Ann reads Shakspeare to me o' nights, which saves my eyes.
MARCH 31ST.--Another stride of the grim specter, and corn-meal is selling for $17 per bushel. Coal at $20.50 per ton, and wood at $30 per cord. And at these prices one has to wait several days to get either. Common tallow candles are selling at $1 per pound. I see that some furnished houses are now advertised for rent; and I hope that all the population that can get away, and subsist elsewhere, will leave the city.
The lower house of Congress has passed a most enormous tax bill, which I apprehend cannot be enforced, if it becomes a law. It will close half the shops--but that may be beneficial, as thousands have rushed into trade and become extortioners.
I see some batteries of light artillery going toward Petersburg. This is to be used against the enemy when he advances in that direction from Suffolk. No doubt another attempt will be made to capture Richmond. But Lee knows the programme, I doubt not.