A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital Part 54

A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital Part 54

JULY 18TH.--Lee has got over the Potomac with a loss, in crossing, of 1500; and Johnston has abandoned Jackson, Miss.

But we have _awful_ good news from New York: an INSURRECTION, the loss of many lives, extensive pillage and burning, with a suspension of the conscription!

Gen. Morgan is in the enemy's country.

JULY 19TH.--We have no news this morning. But a rumor prevails, which cannot be traced to any authentic source, that Texas has put herself under the protection of France. It is significant, because public sentiment seems to acquiesce in such a measure; and I have not met with any who do not express a wish that it may be so. Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas are now isolated, and no protection or aid can be given them by the government here; and it is natural, after the fall of New Orleans and Vicksburg, for the people to hope that the invaders may be deprived of their prey just at the moment when they antic.i.p.ated a realization of its enjoyment.

Hon. Wm. Porcher Miles writes that, after consultation, the officers have decided that it would be impracticable to hold Morris Island, even if the enemy were driven from it at the point of the bayonet. Therefore they call loudly for Brooke guns of long range, and guns of large calibre for Sumter, so that the fort may prevent the enemy from erecting batteries in breaching distance. They say, in their appeal, that since the fall of Vicksburg there is no other place (but one) to send them.

They are now idle in Richmond. I understand the Secretary of War, etc.

are in consultation on the subject, and I hope the President will, at last, yield to Gen. Beauregard's demands.

Gen. Maury also writes for guns and ordnance stores for the defense of Mobile, which may be attacked next. He will get them.

If the insurrection in New York lives, and resistance to conscription should be general in the North, our people will take fresh hope, and make renewed efforts to beat back the mighty armies of the foe--suffering, and more than decimated, as we are.

But if not--if Charleston and Richmond and Mobile should fall, a peace (submission) party will spring up. Nevertheless, the _fighting_ population would still resist, retiring into the interior and darting out occasionally, from positions of concentration, at the exposed camps of the enemy.

JULY 20TH.--Nothing from Lee or from Johnston, except that the latter has abandoned Jackson. From Bragg's army, I learn that a certain number of regiments were moving from Chattanooga toward Knoxville--and I suspect their destination is Lee's army.

But we have a dispatch from Beauregard, stating that he has again repulsed an attack of the enemy on the battery on Morris Island with heavy loss--perhaps 1500--while his is trifling.

A thousand of the enemy's forces were in Wytheville yesterday, and were severely handled by 130 of the home guards. They did but little injury to the railroad, and burned a few buildings.

An indignant letter has been received from the Hon. W. Porcher Miles, who had applied for a sub-lieutenancy for Charles Porcher, who had served with merit in the 1st South Carolina Artillery, and was his relative. It seems that the President directed the Secretary to state that the appointment could not be given him because he was not 21 years of age. To this Mr. M. replies that several minors in the same regiment have been appointed. I think not.

Governor Brown writes a long letter, protesting against the decision of the Confederate States Government, that the President shall appoint the colonel for the 51st Georgia Regiment, which the Governor says is contrary to the Confederate States Const.i.tution. He will resist it.

A Mrs. Allen, a lady of wealth here, has been arrested for giving information to the enemy. Her letters were intercepted. She is confined at the asylum _St. Francis de Sales_. The surgeon who attends there reports to-day that her mental excitement will probably drive her to madness. Her great fear seems to be that she will be soon sent to a common prison. There is much indignation that she should be a.s.signed to such comfortable quarters--and I believe the Bishop (McGill) protests against having criminals imprisoned in his religious edifices. It is said she has long been sending treasonable letters to Baltimore--but the authorities do not have the names of her letter-carriers published. No doubt they had pa.s.sports.

A letter from Lee's army says we lost 10,000 in the recent battle, killed, wounded, and prisoners. We took 11,000 prisoners and 11 guns.

Thank Heaven! we have fine weather after nearly a month's rain. It may be that we shall have better fortune in the field now.

Some of the bankers had an interview with the government to-day. Unless we can achieve some brilliant success, they cannot longer keep our government notes from depreciating, down to five cents on the dollar.

They are selling for only ten cents now, in gold. In vain will be the sale of a million of government gold in the effort to keep it up.

Gen. Morgan, like a comet, has shot out of the beaten track of the army, and after dashing deeply into Indiana, the last heard of him he was in Ohio, _near Cincinnati_. He was playing havoc with steam-boats, and capturing fine horses. He has some 3000 men we cannot afford to lose--but I fear they will be lost.

JULY 21ST.--We have intelligence to-day, derived from a New York paper of the 18th inst., that the "insurrection" in New York had subsided, under the menacing att.i.tude of the military authority, and that Lincoln had ordered the conscription law to be enforced. This gives promise of a long war.

Mr. Mallory sent a note to the Secretary of War to-day (which of course the Secretary did not see, and will never hear of) by a young man named Juan Boyle, asking permission for B. to pa.s.s into Maryland as an agent of the Navy Department. Judge Campbell indorsed on the back of it (to Brig.-Gen. Winder) that permission was "allowed" by "order." But what is this "agent" to procure in the United States which could not be had by our steamers plying regularly between Wilmington and Europe?

JULY 22D.--Col. Northrop, Commissary-General, sends in a paper to-day saying that only a quarter of a pound of meat per day can be given the soldiers, except when marching, and then only half a pound. He says no more can be derived from the trans-Mississippi country, nor from the State of Mississippi, or Tennessee, and parts of Georgia and Alabama; and if more than the amount he receives be given the soldiers, the negroes will have to go without any. He adds, however, that the peasants of Europe rarely have any meat, and in Hindostan, never.

Col. Bradley T. Johnson, who commanded a brigade at Gettysburg, writes that on the first day we carried everything before us, capturing 8000 prisoners and losing but few men; the error was in not following up the attack with all our forces immediately, and in not having sufficient ammunition on the field.

The newspapers to-day contain pretty accurate accounts of the battle.

JULY 23D.--We have the following dispatch from Gen. Beauregard, which is really refreshing in this season of disasters:

"CHARLESTON, July 22d, 1863.

"The enemy recommenced sh.e.l.ling again yesterday, with but few casualties on our part. We had, in the battle of the 18th inst., about 150 killed and wounded. The enemy's loss, including prisoners, was about 2000. Nearly 800 were buried under a flag of truce.

"Col. Putnam, acting brigadier-general, and Col. Shaw, commanding the negro regiment, were killed.

"(Signed) G. T. BEAUREGARD, _General_."

It is said the _raiders_ that dashed into Wytheville have been taken; but not so with the raiders that have been playing havoc with the railroad in North Carolina.

Another letter from J. M. Botts, Culpepper County, complains of the pasturing of army horses in his fields before the Gettysburg campaign, and asks if his fields are to be again subject to the use of the commander of the army, _now returning to his vicinity_. If _he_ knows that Gen. Lee is fallen back thither, it is more than any one here seems to know. We shall see how accurate Mr. B. is in his conjecture.

A letter from Mr. Goodman, president of Mobile and Charleston Railroad, says military orders have been issued to destroy, by fire, railroad equipments to the value of $5,000,000; and one-third of this amount of destruction would defeat the purpose of the enemy for a long time. The President orders efforts to be made to bring away the equipments by sending them down the road.

Col. Preston, commandant of conscripts for South Carolina, has been appointed Chief of the Bureau of Conscription; he has accepted the appointment, and will be here August 1st. The law will now be honestly executed--if he be not too indolent, sick, etc.

Archbishop Hughes has made a speech in New York to keep down the Irish.

JULY 24TH.--Nothing from Lee, or Johnston, or Beauregard, or Bragg--but ill luck is fated for them all. Our ladies, at least, would not despair.

But a day may change the aspect; a brilliant success would have a marvelous effect upon a people who have so long suffered and bled for freedom.

They are getting on more comfortably, I learn, on the Eastern Sh.o.r.e of Virginia. Only about 25 of the enemy's troops are said to be there, merely to guard the wires. In the Revolutionary war, and in the war of 1812, that peninsula escaped the horrors of war, being deemed then, as now, too insignificant to attract the cupidity of the invaders.

The Secretary of the Treasury sent an agent a few weeks ago with some $12,000,000 for disburs.e.m.e.nt in the trans-Mississippi country, but he has returned to this city, being unable to get through. He will now go to Havana, and thence to Texas; and hereafter money (if money it can be called) will be manufactured at Houston, where a paper treasury will be established.

Gen. Jos. E. Johnston has recently drawn for $20,000 in gold.

A letter from the Commissary-General to Gen. Lee states that we have but 1,800,000 pounds of bacon at Atlanta, and 500,000 pounds in this city, which is less than 30 days' rations for Bragg's and Lee's armies. He says all attempts to get bacon from Europe have failed, and he fears they will fail, and hence, if the ration be not reduced to 1/4 pound we shall soon have no meat on hand. Gen. Lee says he cannot be responsible if the soldiers fail for want of food.

JULY 25TH.--Gen. Beauregard telegraphs that preparations should be made to withstand a bombardment at Savannah, and authority is asked, at the instance of Gov. Brown, to impress a sufficient number of slaves for the purpose.

Gen. Jos. B. Johnston telegraphs the President that Grant has fallen back to Vicksburg, and, from information in his possession, will not stay there a day, _but will proceed up the river_. Gen. Johnston asks if this eccentric movement does not indicate a purpose to concentrate the enemy's forces for the reduction of Richmond.

Grant's men, no doubt, objected to longer service at this season in the Southwest; perhaps Lincoln thinks Grant is the only general who can take Richmond, or it may be necessary for the presence of the army in the North to enforce the draft, to overawe conspirators against the administration, etc. We shall soon know more about it.

Misfortunes come in cl.u.s.ters. We have a report to-day that Gen. Morgan's command has been mostly captured in Ohio. The recent rains made the river unfordable.

It appears that Gen. Pemberton had but 15 days' rations to last 48 days, that the people offered him a year's supply for nothing if he would have it, and this he would not take, red tape requiring it to be delivered and paid for, so it fell into the hands of the enemy. He had a six months' supply of ammunition when he surrendered, and often during the siege would not let his men reply to the enemy's guns.

Advertisers in the papers offer $4000 for subst.i.tutes. One offers a farm in Hanover County, on the Central Railroad, of 230 acres, for a subst.i.tute. There is something significant in this. It was so in France when Napoleon had greatly exhausted the male population.

JULY 26TH.--Letters were received to-day from Gens. Beauregard, Mercer, Whitney, and S. Jones.

It appears that Beauregard has some 6000 men of all arms, and that the enemy's force is estimated to be, or to have been (before losing some 3000), about 10,000. It is true the enemy has the benefit of his floating batteries, but we have our stationary ones. I think Charleston safe.

Gen. Mercer _squeaks_ for the fate of Savannah, unless the government impresses slaves to work on the fortifications. All our generals _squeak_ when an attack is apprehended, for the purpose of alarming the government, and procuring more men and material, so as to make success doubly sure.

And Gen. Whiting is squeaking loudly for the impressment of a thousand slaves, to complete his preparations for defense; and if he does not get them, he thinks the fall of Wilmington a pretty sure thing.