Several members of Congress came into my office and
denounced the policy which the government seemed to have adopted of permitting
Yankees, and those who sympathize with them, to be continually running over to
the enemy with information of our condition, and thus inviting attacks and
raids at points where we are utterly defenseless. They seemed surprised when I
told them that I not only agreed with them entirely, but that I had really
written most of the articles they had read in the press denunciatory of the
policy they condemned. I informed them, moreover, that I had long since refused
to sign any such passports as they alluded to, at the risk of being removed.
They said they believed the President, in his multiplicity of employments, was
not aware of the extent of the practice, and the evil effects it was certain to
entail on the country; and it was their purpose to wait upon him and
remonstrate against the pernicious practice of Mr. Benjamin.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 96-7
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