It rained furiously all night; wind northwest, and snowed to-day until 12 M. to a depth of several inches. It is still blowing a gale from the northwest.
To-day the clerks were paid in the new currency; but I see no abatement of prices from the scarcity of money, caused by funding. Shad are selling at $10 each, paper; or 50 cents, silver. Gold and silver are circulating—a little.
A letter from Liberty, Va., states that government bacon (tithe) is spoiling, in bulk, for want of attention.
From Washington County there are complaints that Gen. Longstreet's impressing officers are taking all, except five bushels of grain and fifty pounds of bacon for each adult—a plenty, one would think, under the circumstances.
Senator Hunter has asked and obtained a detail for Mr. Dandridge (under eighteen) as quartermaster's clerk. And Mr. Secretary Seddon has ordered the commissary to let Mrs. Michie have sugar and flour for her family, white and black.
Mr. Secretary Benjamin sent over, to-day, for passports to the Mississippi River for two “secret agents.” What for?
Gen. Lee has made regulations to prevent cotton, tobacco, etc. passing his lines into the enemy's country, unless allowed by the government. But, then, several in authority will “allow" it without limit.
I set out sixty-eight early cabbage-plants yesterday. They are now under the snow!
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 179-80
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