There is trouble in
the Conscription Bureau. Col. Preston, the new superintendent, finds it no bed
of roses, made for him by Lieut.-Col. Lay — the lieutenant-colonel being absent
in North Carolina, sent thither to compose the discontents; which may
complicate matters further, for they don't want Virginians to meddle with North
Carolina matters. However, the people he is sent to are supposed to be disloyal.
Gen. Pillow has applied to have Georgia in the jurisdiction of his Bureau
of Conscription, and the Governors of Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee unite in
the request; also Generals Johnston and Bragg. Gen. Pillow already has
Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, etc.—a much larger jurisdiction than the
bureau here. Col. Preston, of course, protests against all this, and I believe
the Secretary sympathizes with him.
Prof. G. M.
Richardson, of the Georgia Military Institute, sends some interesting
statistics. That State has furnished the army 80,000, between the ages of
eighteen and forty-five years. Still, the average number of men in each county
between sixteen and eighteen and forty-five and sixty is 462, and there are 132
counties: total, 60,984. He deducts 30 per cent, for the infirm, etc. (18,689),
leaving 42,689 men able to bear arms still at home. Thus, after putting some
500,000 in the field (if we could put them there), there would yet remain a
reserve for home defense against raids, etc. in the Confederate States, of not
less than 250,000 men.
Gen. Winder sent to
the Secretary of War to-day for authority to appoint a clerk to attend
exclusively to the mails to and from the United States — under Gen. Winder's
sole direction.
Major Quantrel, a
Missouri guerrilla chief, has dashed into Lawrence, Kansas, and burnt the city —
killing and wounding 180. He had Gen. Jim Lane, but he escaped.
Gen. Floyd is dead;
some attribute his decease to ill treatment by the government.
I saw Mr. Hunter
yesterday, bronzed, but bright. He is a little thinner, which improves his
appearance.
Gen. Lee is in
town—looking well. When he returns, I think the fall campaign will open
briskly.
A dispatch received
to-day says that on Tuesday evening another assault on Battery Wagner was in
progress — but as yet we have no result.
Lieut. Wood
captured a third gun-boat in the Rappahannock, having eight guns.
The prisoners here
selected to die, in retaliation for Burnside's execution of our officers taken
while recruiting in Kentucky, will not be executed.
Nor will the
officers taken on Morris Island, serving with the negroes, suffer death in
accordance with the act of Congress and the President's proclamation. The
Secretary referred the matter to the President for instruction, and the
President invited the advice of the Secretary. The Secretary advised that they
be held indefinitely, without being brought to trial, and in this the President
acquiesces.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p.
24-6
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