The Quartermaster-General publishes a notice that he will
receive and distribute contributions of clothing, etc. to the army, and even pay
for the shirts $1 each! Shirts are selling at $12. The people will not
trust him to convey the clothing to their sons and brothers, and so the army
must suffer on. But he is getting in bad odor. A gentleman in Alabama writes
that his agents are speculating in food: the President tells the Secretary to
demand explanations, and the Secretary does so. Col. Myers fails, I think, to
make the exhibit required, and it may be the worse for him.
I see by the papers that another of Gen. Winder's police has
escaped to Washington City, and is now acting as a Federal detective.
And yet many similar traitors are retained in service here!
The Governor of North Carolina writes the President that his
State intends to organize an army of 10,000 men for its own defense, besides
her sixty regiments in the Confederate States service; and asks if the
Confederate States Government can furnish any arms, etc. The President sends
this to the Secretary of War, for his advice. He wants to know Mr.
Seddon's views on the subject — a delicate and embarrassing predicament for the
new Secretary, truly! He must know that the President frowns on all military
organizations not under his own control, and that he counteracted all Gen.
Floyd's efforts to raise a division under State authority. Beware, Mr. Seddon!
The President is a little particular concerning his prerogatives; and by the
advice you now give, you stand or fall. What is North Carolina to the Empire?
You tread on dangerous ground. Forget your old State Rights doctrine, or off
goes your head.
To-day we have a dispatch from Gov. Pettus, saying authority
to pass cotton through the lines of the army, and for salt to have ingress,
must be given immediately. The President directs the Secretary to transmit
orders to the generals to that effect. He says the cotton is to go to France
without touching any port in the possession of the enemy.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 198-9
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