A dispatch from Gen. Bragg, received today, three miles from
Chattanooga, and dated yesterday, says the enemy occupies a strong position,
and confronts him in great force, but he is sending troops round his flanks. No
doubt he will cross the river as soon as possible. Only a small portion of
Longstreet's corps has been engaged, so Bragg will have a fresh force to hurl
against the invader. We learn to-day that Gen. Hood is not dead, and will
recover.
The President sent over to the Secretary of War to-day some
extracts from a letter he has just received from Mobile, stating that a large
trade is going on with the enemy at New Orleans. A number of vessels, laden
with cotton, had sailed from Pascagoula Bay, for that destination. Some one or
two had been stopped by the people, as the traffic is expressly prohibited by
an act of Congress. But upon inquiry it was ascertained that the trade was
authorized by authority from Richmond — the War Department. I doubt whether Mr.
Seddon authorized it. Who then? Perhaps it will be ascertained upon
investigation.
Mr. Kean, the young Chief of the Bureau, is a most
fastidious civil officer, for he rebukes older men than himself for mistaking
an illegible K for an R, and puts his warning on record in pencil marks.
Mr. K. came in with Mr. Randolph, but declined to follow his patron any
further.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p.
51-2
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