All is quiet (before the storm) on the Rappahannock, Gen.
Jackson's corps being some twenty miles lower down the river than Longstreet's.
It is said Burnside has been removed already and Hooker given the command.
Gen. S. Cooper takes sides with Col. Myers against Gen.
Wise. Gen. W.'s letter of complaint of the words, “Let them suffer,” was
referred to Gen. C., who insisted upon sending the letter to the
Quartermaster-General before either the Secretary or the President saw it, — and
it was done. Why do the Northern men here hate Wise?
Gen. Lee dispatches to-day that there is a very large amount
of corn in the Rappahannock Valley, which can be procured, if wagons be sent
from Richmond. What does this mean? That the enemy will come over and get it if
we do not take it away?
A letter from the President of the Graniteville Cotton
Mills, complains that only 75 per ct. profit is allowed by Act of Congress,
whose operatives are exempted from military duty, if the law be interpreted to
include sales to individuals as well as to the government, and suggesting
certain modifications. He says he makes 14,000 yards per day, which is some
4,000,000 per annum. It costs him 20 cts. per yard to manufacture cotton cloth,
including, of course, the cotton, and 75 per ct. will yield, I believe,
$500,000 profits, which would be equivalent to 32 cts. per yard. But the market
price, he says, is 68 cts. per yard, or some $2,000,000 profits! This war is a great
encourager of domestic manufacturers, truly!
The Governor sends out a proclamation to-day, saying the
President has called on him and other governors for assistance, in returning
absent officers and men to their camps; in procuring supplies of food and
clothing for the army; in drafting slaves to work on fortifications; and,
finally, to put down the extortioners. The Governor invokes the people to
respond promptly and fully. But how does this speak for the government, or
rather the efficiency of the men who by “many indirect ways” came into power?
Alas! it is a sad commentary.
The President sent a hundred papers to the department
to-day, which he has been diligently poring over, as his pencil marks bear
ample evidence. They were nearly all applications for office, and this business
constitutes much of his labor.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 203-4
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