Slight showers.
Wm. Ira Smith,
tailor, and part owner of the Whig, has continued the publication as a Union
paper.
I visited the awful
crater of the magazine. One current or stream of fire and bricks knocked down
the east wall of the cemetery, and swept away many head and foot stones,
demolishing trees, plants, etc.
It is said President
Lincoln is still in the city. Dr. Ellison informed me to-day of the prospect of
Judge Campbell's conference with Mr. Lincoln. It appears that the judge had
prepared statistics of our resources in men and materials, showing them to be
utterly inadequate for a prolongation of the contest, and these he exhibited to
certain prominent citizens, whom he wished to accompany him. Whether they were
designed also for the eye of President Lincoln, or whether he saw them, I did
not learn. But one citizen accompanied him—GUSTAVUS A. MYERS, the little old
lawyer, who has certainly cultivated the most friendly relations with all the
members of President Davis's cabinet, and it is supposed he prosecuted a
lucrative business procuring substitutes, obtaining discharges, getting
passports, etc.
The ultimatum of
President Lincoln was Union, emancipation, disbandment of the Confederate
States armies. Then no oath of allegiance would be required, no confiscation
exacted, or other penalty; and the Governor and Legislature to assemble and
readjust the affairs of Virginia without molestation of any character.
Negotiations are in
progress by the clergymen, who are directed to open the churches on Sunday, and
it was intimated to the Episcopalians that they should pray for the President
of the United States. To this they demur, being ordered by the Convention to
pray for the President of the Confederate States. They are willing to omit the
prayer altogether, and await the decision of the military authority on that
proposition.
SOURCE: John
Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate
States Capital, Volume 2, p. 472-3
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