Official dispatches from Gen. Bragg confirm the achievement of
Col. Morgan, acting as brigadier-general. There was a fight, several
hundred being killed and wounded on both sides; but Morgan's victory was
complete, his captures amounting to 1800 men, a battery, wagon train, etc.
We have also a dispatch that Major-Gen. Lovell, the
Yankee, had a battle with the enemy, killing, wounding, and capturing 34!
A characteristic letter was received to-day from Mr. Sanford,
Alabama, recommending Col. Dowdell for a brigadiership. I hope he may get it,
as he is a gallant Southerner. Mr. S. has some hard hits at the
government; calling it a government of chief clerks and subordinate clerks. He
hopes Mr. Seddon will not be merely a clerk.
Gen. Jos. E. Johuston has written from the West a gloomy
letter to Mr. Wigfall, Texan Senator. He says he is ordered to reinforce
Lieut.-Gen. Pemberton (another Northern general) from Bragg's army. Pemberton
is retreating on Grenada, Mississippi, followed by 40,000 of the enemy. How is
he, Gen. J., to get from Tennessee to Grenada with reinforcements, preceded by
one army of the enemy, and followed by another?
Mr. Wigfall recommends the Secretary (as if he could
do it!) to concentrate all the armies of the West, and beat the enemy out of the
Mississippi Valley. Gen. Johnston says Lieut.-Gen. Holmes has been
ordered to reinforce Pemberton. Why, this is the very thing Mr. Randolph did,
and lost his clerkship for it! The President must have changed his mind.
Gen. Randolph sent in his resignation as brigadier-general
today. The younger brigadiers, Davis (the President's nephew) and Pryor, have
been recently assigned to brigades, and this may have operated on Randolph as
an emetic.
There are two war steamers at Charleston from abroad; one a Frenchman,
the other an Englishman. Gen. Beauregard entertained the officers of the first
the other day.
Gen. Banks has sailed down the coast on an expedition, the
nature of which, no doubt, will be developed soon.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 209
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