Nothing but disasters to chronicle now. Natchez and Yazoo
City, all gone the way of Vicksburg, involving a heavy loss of boats, guns, and
ordnance stores; besides, the enemy have got some twenty locomotives in
Mississippi.
Lee has retreated as far as Culpepper Court House.
The President publishes another proclamation, fixing a day
for the people to unite in prayer.
The weather is bad. With the exception of one or two bright
days, it has been raining nearly a month. Superadded to the calamities crowding
upon us, we have a rumor to-day that Gen. Lee has tendered his resignation.
This is false. But it is said he is opposed to the retaliatory executions
ordered by the President, which, if persisted in, must involve the life of his
son, now in the hands of the enemy. Our officers executed by Burnside were
certainly recruiting in Kentucky within the lines of the enemy, and Gen. Lee
may differ with the President in the equity of executing officers taken by us
in battle in retaliation.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 388-9
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