Gen. J. E. Johnston dispatches from the West that the meat
is so indifferent, the soldiers must have an additional quantity of rice.
Beef sells to-day at $1.25 per pound by the quarter. And yet
an Englishman at the best hotel yesterday remarked that he never lived so
cheaply in any country, his board being only three shillings (in specie) per
diem, or about $20 Confederate States notes.
A dozen china cups and saucers sold at auction to-day for
$160. Col. Preston, Conscription Bureau, several members of the cabinet, etc.
feasted at a cost of $2000! It is said that the Jack was turned up and Jeff turned
down in a witticism, and smiled at nem. con. But I don't believe that.
We have a light snow, the first time the earth has been
white this winter.
I am reminded daily of the privations I used to read of in
the Revolutionary War. Then thorns were used, now we use pins, for buttons. My
waistbands of pantaloons and drawers are pinned instead of buttoned.
Gen. Jno. H. Morgan arrived this evening, and enjoyed a fine
reception, as a multitude of admirers were at the depot.
About the same hour the President rode past my house alone,
to indulge his thoughts in solitude in the suburbs of the city.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p.
125
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