Cloudy—slight showers. I published an article yesterday in the Enquirer, addressed to the President, on the subject of supplies for the army and the people (the government to take all the supplies in the country), the annihilation of speculation, and the necessary suppression of the Southern (Yankee) Express Company. This elicited the approval of Col. Northrop, the Commissary-General, who spoke to me on the subject. He told me the Express Company had attempted to bribe him, by offering to bring his family supplies gratis, etc. He said he had carried his point, in causing Gen. Bragg to address him according to military etiquette. He showed me another order from Bragg (through the Adjutant-General), to take possession of the toll meal at Crenshaw's mills. This he says is contrary to contract, and he was going to the Secretary to have it withdrawn. “Besides,” said he, “and truly, it would do no good. The people must eat, whether they get meal from Crenshaw or not. If not, they will get it elsewhere, and what they do get will be so much diverted from the commissariat.”
There are rumors of the enemy accumulating a heavy force at Suffolk.
The guard at Camp Lee are going in the morning to Lee's army; their places here to be filled by the reserve forces of boys and old men. This indicates a battle on the Rapidan.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 187
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