After all, Fredericksburg was severely shelled — whether
designedly or incidentally in the fight, does not yet appear.
Our army has fallen back a little — for a purpose. Lee knows
every inch of the ground.
Again we have rumors of a hostile fleet being in the river;
and Major-Gen. G. W. Smith has gone to Petersburg to see after the means of defense,
if an attack should be made in that quarter. Some little gloom and despondency
are manifested, for the first time, in this community.
Major-Gen. S. Jones writes that although the Federal Gen. Cox
has left the valley of the Kanawha, 5000 of his men remain; and he deems it
inexpedient, in response to Gen. Lee's suggestion, to detach any portion of his
troops for operations elsewhere. He says Jenkins's cavalry is in a bad
condition.
Here is an instance of South Carolina honor. During the
battle of Williamsburg, last spring, W. R. Erwin, a private in Col. Jenkins's
Palmetto sharpshooters, was detailed to take care of the wounded, and was
himself taken prisoner The enemy supposing him to be a surgeon, he was paroled.
He now returns to the service; and although the mistake could never be
detected, he insists on our government exchanging a private of the enemy's for
himself. With the assurance that this will be done, he goes again to battle.
Yesterday flour and tobacco had a fall at auction. Some
suppose the bidders had in view the contingency of the capture of the city by
the enemy.
In the market-house this morning, I heard a man speaking
loudly, denounce a farmer for asking about $6 a bushel for his potatoes, and
hoping that the Yankees would take them from him for nothing!
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 211-2
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