The President is sick, and has not been in the Executive
Office for three days. Gen. Toombs, resigned, has published a farewell address
to his brigade. He does not specify of what his grievance consists ; but he
says he cannot longer hold his commission with honor. The President must be
aware of his perilous condition. When in adversity, some of those he has
trusted, discuss the bases of reconstruction; and when we are prosperous,
others, in similar positions, agitate the question of reorganization — the
motive of both being his ruin. But I suppose he has calculated these
contingencies, and never anticipated paving a bed of roses to recline upon
during the terrible, and sometimes doubtful struggle for independence.
The rumor that Vicksburg had fallen is not confirmed; on the
contrary, the story that the Indianola, captured from the enemy, and reported
to have been blown up, was unfounded. We have Gen. Pemberton's official
assurance of this.
Col. Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance, a Pennsylvanian, sent into
the department to-day, with a request that it be filed, his oath of allegiance
to this government, and renunciation of that of the United States, and of his
native State. This would indicate that the location of his nativity has been
the subject of remark. What significance is to be attributed to this step at
this late day, I know not, and care not. An error was committed in placing
Northern men in high positions to the exclusion of Southern men, quite as
capable of filling them.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 269-70
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