Clear; but rained copiously last night.
A letter from Gen. Lee indicates that the “Bureau of Conscription” fails to replenish the army.
The rich men and slave-owners are but too successful in getting out, and in keeping out of the service. The Governor, who commissions magistrates, is exempting some fifty daily, and these, in many instances, are not only young men, but speculators. And nearly every landed proprietor has given bonds to furnish meal, etc. to obtain exemption. Thus corruption is eating to the heart of the cause, and I fear the result of the contest between speculation and patriotism. Mr. Seddon says he has striven to make the conscription officers do their duty, and was not aware that so many farmers had gotten exemption. He promises to do all in his power to obtain recruits, and will so use the strictly local troops as to render the Reserves more active.
What that means we shall soon see. A dispatch from Mobile says Fort Morgan is in the possession of the enemy! Per contra, a dispatch from the same place says Memphis is in the possession of Forrest.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 272
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