Gen. Lee's cavalry are picking up some prisoners, several
hundreds having already been sent to Richmond. It is said the advance of his
army has been delayed several weeks for want of commissary stores, while
Commissary-General Northrop's or Major Ruffin's agent Moffitt, it is alleged,
has been selling beef (gross) to the butchers at 50 cents per pound, after
buying or impressing at from 16 to 20 cents.
Gen. Lee writes that a scout (from Washington ?) informs him
that Gen. Gilmore has been ordered to take Charleston at all hazards, and,
failing in the attempt, to make a flank movement and seize upon Branchville;
which he (Gen. Lee) deems an unlikely feat.
What a change! The young professors and tutors who
shouldered their pens and became clerks in the departments are now resigning,
and seeking employment in country schools remote from the horrid sounds of war
so prevalent in the vicinity of the Capitol, and since they were ordered to
volunteer in the local companies, which will probably have some sharp practice
in the field. They are intent, however, on “teaching the young idea how
to shoot.” The young chiefs of bureaus, being fixed “for life,” did not volunteer.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p.
70-1
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