A letter from Hon. W. Porcher Miles to the Secretary of War,
received the 15th July, urging the government to send some long-range Brooke
guns for the salvation of Charleston, and saying that the President had once
promised him that they should be sent thither, being sent by the Secretary to
the President, was, to-day, August 5th, returned by the President, with a paper
from the Secretary of the Navy, showing that, at the time Mr. Miles says he was
promised the Brooke guns, there were really none on hand. Thus Mr. Miles
has been caught by the President, after the lapse of twenty days! It is
not denied, even by the Secretary of the Navy, that long-range guns were on
hand at the time — but there were no Brooke guns, simply. Thus while
Charleston's fate hangs trembling in the balance, and the guns are idle here,
twenty days are fruitlessly spent. Mr. Miles appears to be a friend of
Beauregard. Every letter that general sends to the department is sure to put
twenty clerks at work in the effort to pick flaws in his accuracy of statement.
A report of the ordnance officers of Bragg's army shows that
in the late retreat (without a battle) from Shelbyville to Chattanooga, the
army lost some 6000 arms and between 200,000 and 300,000 cartridges!
Our naval commanders are writing that they cannot get seamen
—and at Mobile half are on the sick list.
Lee writes that his men are in good fighting condition — if
he only had enough of them. Of the three corps, one is near Fredericksburg
(this side the river), one at Orange C. H., and one at Gordonsville. I doubt if
there will be another battle for a month. Meantime the Treasury notes continue
to depreciate, and all the necessaries of life advance in price — but they do
not rise in proportion.
The Examiner had a famous attack on the President
to-day (from the pen, I think, of a military man, on Gen. Scott's staff, when
Mr. Davis was Secretary of War), for alleged stubbornness and disregard of the
popular voice; for appointing Pemberton, Holmes, Mallory, etc., with a side
fling at Memminger.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 5-6
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