Gen. Bragg dispatches the government that Gen. Forrest has
captured 800 prisoners in Tennessee, and several thousand of our men are making
a successful raid in Kentucky.
Gen. Whiting makes urgent calls for reinforcements at
Wilmington, and cannot be supplied with many.
Gen. Lee announces to the War Department that the spring
campaign is now open, and his army may be in motion any day.
Col. Godwin (of King and Queen County) is here trying to
prevail on the Secretary of War to put a stop to the blockaderunners, Jews, and
spies, daily passing through his lines with passports from Gens. Elzey and
Winder. He says the persons engaged in this illicit traffic are all
extortioners and spies, and $50,000 worth of goods from the enemy's country
pass daily.
Col. Lay still repudiates Judge Meredith's decision in his
instructions to the Commandants of Camps of Instruction. Well, if we have a superabundance
of fighting men in the field, the foreign-born denizens and Marylanders can
remain at home and make money while the country that protects them is harried
by the invader.
The gaunt form of wretched famine still approaches with
rapid strides. Meal is now selling at $12 per bushel, and potatoes at $l6.
Meats have almost disappeared from the market, and none but the opulent can
afford to pay $3.50 per pound for butter. Greens, however, of various
kinds, are coming in; and as the season advances, we may expect a diminution of
prices. It is strange that on the 30th of March, even in the “sunny South,” the
fruit-trees are as bare of blossoms and foliage as at mid-winter. We shall have
fire until the middle of May, — six months of winter!
I am spading up my little garden, and hope to raise a few
vegetables to eke out a miserable subsistence for my family. My daughter Ann
reads Shakspeare to me o' nights, which saves my eyes.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 282-3
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