No war news to-day. But a letter, an impassioned one, from
Gov. Vance, complains of outrages perpetrated by detached bodies of Confederate
States cavalry, in certain counties, as being worse than any of the plagues of Egypt:
and says that if any such scourge had been sent upon the land, the children of Israel
would not have been followed to the Red Sea. In short, he informs the Secretary
of War, if no other remedy be applied, he will collect his militia and levy war
against the Confederate States troops! I placed that letter on the Secretary's
table, for his Christmas dinner. As I came out, I met Mr. Hunter, President of the
Senate, to whom I mentioned the subject. He said, phlegmatically, that many in
North Carolina were “prone to act in opposition to the Confederate States
Government.”
Yesterday the President sent over a newspaper, from Alabama,
containing an article marked by him, in which he was very severely castigated
for hesitating to appoint Gen. J. E. Johnston to the command of the western
army. Why he sent this I can hardly conjecture, for I believe Johnston
has been assigned to that command; but I placed the paper in the hands of the
Secretary.
My son Custis, yesterday, distributed proposals for a night-school
(classical), and has some applications already. He is resolved to do all he can
to aid in the support of the family in these cruel times.
It is a sad Christmas; cold, and threatening snow. My two
youngest children, however, have decked the parlor with evergreens, crosses,
stars, etc. They have a cedar Christmas-tree, but it is not burdened. Candy is
held at $8 per pound. My two sons rose at 5 A.m. and repaired to the canal to
meet their sister Anne, who has been teaching Latin and French in the country;
but she was not among the passengers, and this has cast a shade of disappointment
over the family.
A few pistols and crackers are fired by the boys in the
streets — and only a few. I am alone; all the rest being at church. It would
not be safe to leave the house unoccupied. Robberies and murders are daily
perpetrated.
I shall have no turkey to-day, and do not covet one. It is
no time for feasting.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 119-20
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