After the feat at Charleston, Gen. Beauregard and Commodore
Ingraham invited the consuls resident to inspect the harbor, and they
pronounced the blockade raised, no United States ship being seen off the coast.
Then the general and the commodore issued a proclamation to the world that the
port was open. If this be recognized, then the United States will have to give
sixty days' notice before the port can be closed again to neutral powers; and
by that time we can get supplies enough to suffice us for a year. Before night,
however, some twenty blockaders were in sight of the bar. It is not a question of
right, or of might, with France and England — but of inclination. Whenever
they, or either of them, shall be disposed to relieve us, it can be done.
There was a fight near Suffolk yesterday, and it is reported
that our troops repulsed the enemy.
The enemy's gun-boats returned to the bombardment of Fort
McAlister, and met no success. They were driven off. But still, I fear the fort
must succumb.
Senator Saulsbury, of Delaware, has been arrested by the
Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate, for his denunciation of Lincoln as an “imbecile.”
And a Philadelphia editor has been imprisoned for alleged “sympathy with
secessionists.” These arrests signify more battles — more blood.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 253-4
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