I watch the daily
orders of Adjutant and Inspector-Gen. Cooper. These, when “by command of the
Secretary of War,” are intelligible to any one, but not many are by his
command. When simply “by order,” they are promulgated by order of the
President, without even consulting the Secretary; and they often annul the
Secretary's orders. They are edicts, and sometimes thought very
arbitrary ones. One of these orders says liquor shall not be introduced into
the city; and a poor fellow, the other day, was sentenced to the ball-and-chain
for trying to bring hither his whisky from Petersburg. On the same day Gov.
Brown, of Georgia, seized liquor in his State, in transitu over the railroad,
belonging to the government!
Since the turning
over of the passports to Generals Smith and Winder, I have resumed the position
where all the letters to the department come through my hands. I read them,
make brief statements of their contents, and send them to the Secretary. Thus
all sent by the President to the department go through my hands, being
epitomized in the same manner.
The new Assistant
Secretary, Judge Campbell, has been ordering the Adjutant-General too
peremptorily; and so Gen. Cooper has issued an order making Lieut.-Col. Deas an
Acting Assistant Secretary of War, thus creating an office in defiance of Congress.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 181
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