An officer of the Signal Corps reported, yesterday, the
force of Gen. Keyes, on the Peninsula, at 6000. To-day we learn that the enemy
is in possession of Hanover Junction, cutting off communication with both
Fredericksburg and Gordonsville. A train was coming down the Central Road with
another installment of the Winchester prisoners (some 4000 having already
arrived, now confined on Belle Island, opposite the city), but was stopped in
time, and sent back.
Gen. Elzey had just ordered away a brigade from Hanover
Junction to Gordonsville, upon which it was alleged another raid was projected.
What admirable manoeuvring for the benefit of the enemy!
Gen. D. H. Hill wrote, yesterday, that we had no troops on
the Blackwater except cavalry. I hope he will come here and take command.
Gen. Whiting has arrested the Yankee crew of the Arabian, at
Wilmington. It appears that she is owned by New Yorkers, sailed from New York,
and has a Yankee cargo!
Capt. Maury writes from London that R. J. Walker, once a fire-and-fury
Mississippi Senator (but Yankee-born), is in Europe trying to borrow
£50,000,000 for the United States. Capt. Maury says the British Government will
not willingly let us have another “Alabama;” but that it is also offended at
the United States for the atrocities of Wilkes, and this may lead to war. The
war, however, would not be intended as a diversion in our behalf.
Nothing is heard to-day from Lee, except what appears in
Northern papers several days old, when our troops were occupying Hagerstown,
Cumberland, etc., in Maryland, and foraging pretty extensively in Pennsylvania.
Nothing from Vicksburg.
Just as I apprehended! The brigade ordered away from Hanover
to Gordonsville, upon a wild-goose chase, had not been gone many hours before
some 1200 of the enemy's cavalry appeared there, and burnt the bridges which
the brigade had been guarding! This is sottishness, rather than generalship, in
our local commanders.
A regiment was sent up when firing was heard (the
annihilation of our weak guard left at the bridges) and arrived just two hours
too late. The enemy rode back, with a hundred mules they had captured, getting
under cover of their gun-boats.
To-day, it is said, Gen. Elzey is relieved, and Gen. Ransom,
of North Carolina, put in command; also, that Custis Lee (son of Gen. R. E.
Lee) has superseded Gen. Winder. I hope this has been done. Young Lee has
certainly been commissioned a brigadier-general. His brother, Brig.-Gen. W. H.
F. Lee, wounded in a late cavalry fight, was taken yesterday by the enemy at
Hanover Court House.
Gen. Whiting's letter about the “Arabian” came back from the
President, to-day, indorsed that, as Congress did not prohibit private
blockade-running, he wouldn't interfere. So, this is to be the settled policy of
the government.
This morning the President sent a letter to the Secretary of
War, requesting him to direct all mounted officers — some fifty A. A. G.'s and
A. D.'s — to report to him for duty around the city. Good! These gentlemen
ought to be in the saddle instead of being sheltered from danger in the
bureaus.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 360-1
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