W——1, another of Provost Marshal Griswold's policemen, has
arrived in Washington. I never doubted he was secretly in the Yankee service
here, where many of his fellows still remain, betraying the hand that feeds
them. Gen. Winder and the late Secretaries of War must be responsible for all
the injury they may inflict upon the country.
Yesterday, the President received a letter from a gentleman
well known to him, asserting that if Mississippi and Alabama be overrun by the
enemy, a large proportion of the people of those States will certainly submit
to the Government of the United States. The President sent this letter to the
Secretary of War “for his information.”
A letter from W. P. Harris, Jackson, Mississippi, urges the
government to abandon the cities and eastern seaboard, and concentrate all the
forces in the West, for the defense of the Mississippi Valley and River, else
the latter must be lost, which will be fatal to the cause, etc.
Hon. J. H. Reagan has written a savage letter to the
Secretary of War, withdrawing certain papers relating to an application for the
discharge from service of his brother-in-law, on account of feeble health. He
says he will not await the motions (uncertain) of the circumlocution office,
and is unwilling to produce evidence of his statements of the disability of his
relative. Mr. Seddon will doubtless make a spirited response to this imputation
on his office.
We have a rumor that Morgan has made another brilliant raid
into Kentucky, capturing 1800 of the enemy.
The small-pox is spreading in this city to an alarming
extent. This is the feast to which Burnside is invited. They are vaccinating
the clerks in the departments.
Gen. Floyd writes the government that, as the enemy cannot
advance from the West before spring, Echol's and Marshall's forces (10,000)
might be used on the seaboard. I wish they were here.
The United States forces in the field, by their own
estimates, amount to 800,000. We have not exceeding 250,000; but they are not
aware of that.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 208
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