Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: January 3, 1863

To-day we have a dispatch from Vicksburg stating that the enemy had re-embarked, leaving their intrenching instruments, etc., apparently abandoning the purpose of assaulting the city. This is certainly good news.

Gen. Stuart did not cross the Potomac, as reported in the Northern press, but, doubtless, the report produced a prodigious panic among the Yankees. But when Stuart was within eight miles of Alexandria, he telegraphed the government at Washington that if they did not send forward larger supplies of stores to Burnside's army, he (Stuart) would not find it worth while to intercept them.

Capt. Semmes, of the Alabama, has taken another prize — the steamer Ariel — but no gold being on board, and having 800 passengers, he released it, under bonds to pay us a quarter million dollars at the end of the war.

A large meeting has been held in New York, passing resolutions in favor of peace. They propose that New Jersey send a delegation hither to induce us to meet the United States in convention at Louisville, to adopt definitive terms of peace, on the basis of the old Union, or, that being impracticable, separation. Too late!

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 230