Nothing from the armies; but from Charleston it is
ascertained that the enemy's batteries on Morris Island have some of the guns
pointing seaward. This indicates a provision against attack from that
quarter, and suggests a purpose to withdraw the monitors, perhaps to use them
against Wilmington. I suppose the opposite guns in the batteries will soon open
on Charleston.
Thomas Jackson, Augusta, Ga., writes that he can prove the
president of the Southern Express Company, who recently obtained a passport to
visit Europe, really embarked for the United States, taking a large sum in
gold; that another of the same company (which is nothing more than a branch of
Adams's Express Company of New York) will leave soon with more gold. He says
this company has enough men detailed from the army, and conscripts exempted, to
make two regiments.
J. M. Williams writes from Morton, Miss., that his negroes
have been permitted to return to his plantation, near Baton Rouge, and place
themselves under his overseer. During their absence some ten or twelve died.
This is really wonderful policy on the part of the enemy — a policy which, if
persisted in, might ruin us. Mr. Williams asks permission to sell some fifty
bales of cotton to the enemy for the support of his slaves. He says the
enemy is getting all the cotton in that section of country — and it may be
inferred that all the planters are getting back their slaves. The moment any
relaxation occurs in the rigorous measures of the enemy, that moment our
planters cease to be united in resistance.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p.
60-1
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