A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital Part 76

A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital Part 76

Mr. Lyons, chairman of the Committee on Increased Compensation to the civil officers, had an interview with the Secretary of War yesterday.

The Secretary told him, it is said, that unless Congress voted the increase, he would take the responsibility of ordering them rations, etc. etc. And Mr. Smith, of North Carolina, told me, to-day, that something would be done. He it was who moved to lay the bill on the table. He said it would have been defeated, if the vote had been taken on the bill.

Gov. Smith sent to the Legislature a message, yesterday, rebuking the members for doing so little, and urging the pa.s.sage of a bill putting into the State service all between the ages of sixteen and eighteen and over forty-five. The Legislature considered his lecture an insult, and the House of Delegates contemptuously laid it on the table by an almost unanimous vote. So he has war with the Legislature, while the President is in conflict with the Confederate States Senate.

JANUARY 28TH.--The beautiful, pleasant weather continues.

It is said Congress pa.s.sed, last night, in secret session, the bill allowing increased compensation to civil officers and employees. Mr.

Davidson, of fifty years of age, resigned, to-day, his clerkship in the War Department, having been offered $5000 by one of the incorporated companies to travel and buy supplies for it.

Mr. Hubbard, of Alabama, suggests to the Secretary to buy 500,000 slaves, and give one to every soldier enlisting from beyond our present lines, at the end of the war. He thinks many from the border free States would enlist on our side. The Secretary does not favor the project.

Gen. Whiting writes for an order for two locomotive boilers, at Montgomery, Ala., for his torpedo-boats, now nearly completed. He says he intends to attack the blockading squadron off Wilmington.

The weather is still warm and beautiful. The buds are swelling.

JANUARY 30TH.--The Senate has pa.s.sed a new Conscription Act, putting all residents between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five in the military service for the war. Those over forty-five to be detailed by the President as commissary quartermasters, Nitre Bureau agents, provost guards, clerks, etc. This would make up the enormous number of 1,500,000 men! The express companies are to have no detail of men fit for the field, but the President may exempt a certain cla.s.s for agricultural purposes, which, of course, can be revoked whenever a farmer refuses to sell at schedule prices, or engages in speculation or extortion. Thus the President becomes almost absolute, and the Confederacy a military nation. The House will pa.s.s it with some modifications. Already the _Examiner_ denounces it, for it allows only one owner or editor to a paper, and just sufficient printers,--no a.s.sistant editors, no reporters, no clerks, etc. This will save us, and hasten a peace.

Mr. G. A. Myers, the little old lawyer, always potential with the successive Secretaries of War, proposes, in a long letter, that the Department allows 30 to 40 foreigners (Jews) to leave the Confederate States, _via_ Maryland, every week!

Mr. Goodman, President of the Mississippi Railroad, proposes to send cotton to the Yankees in exchange for implements, etc., to repair the road, and Lieut.-Gen. (Bishop) Polk favors the scheme.

Commissary-General Northrop likewise sent in a proposal from an agent of his in Mississippi, to barter cotton with the Yankees for subsistence, and he indorses an approval on it. I trust we shall be independent this summer.

To-day it is cool and cloudy, but Custis has had no use for fire in his school-room of nights for a week--and that in January. The warm weather saved us a dollar per day in coal. Custis's scholars are paying him $95 the first month.

I shall hope for better times now. We shall have men enough, if the Secretary and conscription officers do not strain the meshes of the seine too much, and the currency will be reduced. The speculators and extortioners, in great measure, will be circ.u.mvented, for the new conscription will take them from their occupations, and they will not find transportation for their wares.

The 2000 barrels of corn destroyed by the enemy on the Peninsula, a few days ago, belonged to a relative of Col. Ruffin, a.s.sistant Commissary-General! He would not impress that--and lo! it is gone! Many here are glad of it.

JANUARY 31ST.--It rained moderately last night, and is cooler this morning. But the worst portion of the winter is over. The pigeons of my neighbor are busy hunting straws in my yard for their nests. They do no injury to the garden, as they never scratch. The shower causes my turnips to present a fresher appearance, for they were suffering for moisture. The buds of the cherry trees have perceptibly swollen during the warm weather.

A letter from Gen. Cobb (Georgia) indicates that the Secretary of War has refused to allow men having employed subst.i.tutes to form new organizations, and he combats the decision. He says they will now appeal to the courts, contending that the law putting them in the service is unconst.i.tutional, and some will escape from the country, or otherwise evade the law. They cannot go into old companies and be sneered at by the veterans, and commanded by their inferiors in fortune, standing, etc. He says the decision will lose the service 2000 men in Georgia.

The Jews are fleeing from Richmond with the money they have made.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

Gen. Lovell applies for a command.--Auspicious opening of 1864.--Mr.

Wright's resolutions.--Rumored approach of Gen. Butler.--Letter from Gov. Brown.--Letter from Gen. Lee.--Dispatches from Gen.

Beauregard.--President Davis's negroes.--Controversy between Gen.

Winder and Mr. Ould.--Robbery of Mr. Lewis Hayman.--Promotion of Gen.

Bragg, and the _Examiner_ thereon.--Scarcity of provisions in the army.--Congress and the President.

FEBRUARY 1ST.--Hazy, misty weather. Gen. Lovell (who lost New Orleans) has applied for a command in the West, and Gen. Johnston approves it strongly. He designs dividing his army into three corps, giving one (3d division) to Gen. Hardee; one (2d division) to Gen. Hindman; and one (1st division) to Lovell. But the Secretary of War (wide awake) indorses a disapproval, saying, in his opinion, it would be injudicious to place a corps under the command of Gen. Lovell, and it would not give confidence to the army. This being sent to the President, came back indorsed, "opinion concurred in.--J. D."

Gen. Pillow has applied for the command of two brigades for operations between Gen. Johnston's and Gen. Polk's armies, protecting the flanks of both, and guarding the coal mines, iron works, etc. in Middle Alabama.

This is strongly approved by Generals Johnston, Polk, Gov. Watts & Co.

But the President has not yet decided the matter.

The Commissary-General is appointing many ladies to clerkships. Old men, disabled soldiers, and ladies are to be relied on for clerical duty, nearly all others to take the field. But every ingenuity is resorted to by those having in subst.i.tutes to evade military service.

There is a great pressure of foreigners (mostly Irish) for pa.s.ses to leave the country.

FEBRUARY 2D.--So lax has become Gen. Winder's rule, or deficient, or worse, the vigilance of his detectives,--the rogues and cut-throats,--one of them keeps a mistress in a house the rent of which is more than his salary, that five Jews, the other day, cleared out in a schooner laden with tobacco, professedly for Petersburg, but sailed directly to the enemy. They had with them some $10,000 in gold; and as they absconded to avoid military service in the Confederate States, no doubt they imparted all the information they could to the enemy.

Mr. Benjamin, Secretary of State, asked the Secretary of War to-day to make such arrangements as would supply the State Department with regular files of Northern papers. They sometimes have in them important diplomatic correspondence, and the perusal of this is about all the Secretary of State has to do.

It is rumored that the Hon. Robert Toombs has been arrested in Georgia for treason. I cannot believe it, but I know he is inimical to the President.

The British papers again seem to sympathise with us.

Senator Orr writes to the Secretary that a resolution of the Senate, asking for copies of Gen. Beauregard's orders in 1862 for the fortification of Vicksburg (he was the first to plan the works which made such a glorious defense), and also a resolution calling for a copy of Gen. B.'s charges against Col. ----, had not been responded to by the President. He asks that these matters may be brought to the President's attention.

The weather is beautiful and spring-like again, and we may soon have some news both from Tennessee and North Carolina. From the latter I hope we shall get some of the meat endangered by the proximity of the enemy.

FEBRUARY 3D.--The following dispatch indicates the prestige of success for the year 1864, and it is probable it will be followed by a succession of successes, for the administration at Washington will find, this year, constant antagonisms everywhere, in the North as well as in the South, and in the army there will be opposing parties--Republicans and Democrats. On the part of the South, we have experienced the great agony of 1863, and have become so familiar with horrors that we shall fight with a fearful desperation. But the dispatch:

"Glorious news! The whole Yankee force, about 150, are our prisoners, and their gun-boat 'Smith Briggs,' destroyed.

"No one hurt on our side. Four Yankees killed and two or three wounded.

"The prisoners are now at Broad Water. Send down a train for them to-morrow."

We learn that this Yankee force was commissioned to destroy a large factory at Smithfield, in Isle of Wight County. We do not know the size or composition of our command which achieved the results noticed above, but understand that it contained two companies of the Thirty-first North Carolina Regiment.

Congress has not yet finally acted on the Tax bill, nor on the new Conscription bill.

The Secretary of War said to-day that he would not allow the increased pay to any of his civil officers who were young and able to bear arms--and this after urging Congress to increase their compensation. It will be very hard on some who are refugees, having families dependent on them. Others, who board, must be forced into the army (the design), for their expenses per month will be some fifty per cent, more than their income.

The weather is clear but colder.

FEBRUARY 4TH.--Clear and pretty cold. We have news of another brilliant affair at Kinston, N. C., where Gen. Pickett has beaten the enemy, killing and wounding and taking some 500 men, besides capturing another gun-boat! Thus the campaign of 1864 opens auspiciously.

And Gen. Early has beaten the foe in Hardy County, Northwest Virginia, capturing, it is said, some 800.

It is supposed that Gen. Pickett will push on to Newbern, and probably capture the town. At all events we shall get large supplies from the tide-water counties of North Carolina. General Lee planned the enterprise, sending some 15,000 men on the expedition.

Yesterday the Senate Committee reported _against_ the House bill modifying the act making all men liable to conscription who have hired subst.i.tutes. But they are debating a new exemption bill in the House.

It is true Mr. Toombs was arrested at Savannah, or was ejected from the cars because he would not procure a pa.s.sport.

To-day Mr. Kean, the young Chief of the Bureau of War, has registered all the clerks, the dates of their appointments, their age, and the number of children they have. He will make such remarks as suits him in each case, and submit the list to the Secretary for his action regarding the increased compensation. Will he intimate that his own services are so indispensable that he had better remain out of the field?

The following "political card" for the Northern Democrats was played yesterday. I think it a good one, if nothing more be said about it here.