From the Northern papers we learn that the defeat at
Charleston is called by the enemy a Reconnoissance.
This causes us much merriment here; McClellan's defeat was called a “strategical
movement,” and “change of base.”
We have some rumors to-day, to the effect that Gen. Hill is
likely to take Washington and Newbern, N. C; Gen. Longstreet, Suffolk; and Gen.
Wise, Fort Magruder, and the Peninsula — he has not troops enough.
Gold advanced 7 per cent, in New York when the news of the “reconnoissance”
reached that city.
We are planting almost every acre in grain, to the exclusion
of cotton and tobacco — resolved never to be starved, nor even feel a scarcity
of provisions in future. We shall be cutting wheat in another month in Alabama
and other States.
Among the other rumors, it is said Hooker is falling back
toward Washington, but these are merely rumors.
The President is in a very feeble and nervous condition, and
is really threatened with the loss of sight altogether. But he works on; and
few or no visitors are admitted. He remains at his dwelling, and has not been
in the executive office these ten days.
Col. Lay was merry again to-day. He ordered in another
foreign substitute (in North Carolina).
Pins are so scarce and costly, that it is now a pretty
general practice to stoop down and pick up any found in the street. The
boarding-houses are breaking up, and rooms, furnished and unfurnished, are
rented out to messes. One dollar and fifty cents for beef, leaves no margin for
profit, even at $100 per month, which is charged for board, and most of the
boarders cannot afford to pay that price. Therefore they take rooms, and buy
their own scanty food. I am inclined to think provisions would not be
deficient, to an alarming extent, if they were equally distributed. Wood is no
scarcer than before the war, and yet $30 per load (less than a cord) is
demanded for it, and obtained.
The other day Wilmington might have been taken, for
the troops were sent to Beauregard. Their places have since been filled by a brigade
from Longstreet. It is a monstrous undertaking to attempt to subjugate so vast a
country as this, even with its disparity of population. We have superior
facilities for concentration, while the invader must occupy, or penetrate the
outer lines of the circumference. Our danger is from within, not from without.
We are distressed more by the extortioners than by the enemy. Eternal infamy on
the heads of speculators in articles of prime necessity! After the war, let
them be known by the fortunes they have amassed from the sufferings of the
patriots and heroes! —the widows and orphans!
This day is the anniversary of the secession of Virginia.
The government at Washington did not believe the separation would last two
years! Nor do they believe now, perhaps, that it will continue two years
longer.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 293-5
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