So lax has become Gen. Winder's rule, or deficient, or
worse, the vigilance of his detectives,—the rogues and cut-throats,—one of them
keeps a mistress in a house the rent of which is more than his salary, that
five Jews, the other day, cleared out in a schooner laden with tobacco,
professedly for Petersburg, but sailed directly to the enemy. They had with
them some $10,000 in gold; and as they absconded to avoid military service in
the Confederate States, no doubt they imparted all the information they could
to the enemy.
Mr. Benjamin, Secretary of State, asked the Secretary of War
to-day to make such arrangements as would supply the State Department with
regular files of Northern papers. They sometimes have in them important
diplomatic correspondence, and the perusal of this is about all the Secretary
of State has to do.
It is rumored that the Hon. Robert Toombs has been arrested
in Georgia for treason. I cannot believe it, but I know he is inimical to the
President.
The British papers again seem to sympathise with us.
Senator Orr writes to the Secretary that a resolution of the
Senate, asking for copies of Gen. Beauregard's orders in 1862 for the
fortification of Vicksburg (he was the first to plan the works which made such
a glorious defense), and also a resolution calling for a copy of Gen. B.'s charges
against Col. ——, had not been responded to by the President. He asks that these
matters may be brought to the President's attention.
The weather is beautiful and spring-like again, and we may
soon have some news both from Tennessee and North Carolina. From the latter I
hope we shall get some of the meat endangered by the proximity of the enemy.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel
War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p.
140-1
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