Another letter, from Gen. Whiting, calls vehemently for
reinforcements, artillery, cavalry, and infantry — or else the city and harbor
are soon to be at the mercy of the enemy. He is importunate.
After all, Morgan's head was not shaved — but his
beard, and that of his officers, was cut, and their hair made short. This
I learn from a letter at the department from Morgan's Assistant Adjutant-General.
The tocsin was ringing in my ears when I awoke this morning.
Custis packed his haversack, and, taking blanket, etc. etc., joined his
department comrades, and they were all marched out the Brooke turnpike.
Yesterday the enemy in considerable force came up the Peninsula and attacked
the guard (70 men) at Bottom's Bridge, killing, so report says, Lieut. Jetu, of
South Carolina, and some twelve or fifteen others. But I believe the attacking
party have recrossed the Chickahominy. We shall know in a few hours. Gen. Lee
is still here. Gen. Wise's brigade, with the militia, the department companies,
and the convalescents from the hospitals, must number some 8000 men in this
vicinity. If the enemy be in formidable numbers, we shall soon be reinforced.
We have nothing from Charleston since Tuesday evening, when,
it is said, the “first assault”
was repulsed. It is strange we get nothing later.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p.
26
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