Monday, August 8, 2022

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: September 10, 1864

Slight showers, and warm.

Gen. J. H. Morgan was betrayed by a woman, a Mrs. Williamson, who was entertaining him.

Custis made an estimate of the white male population in seven States this side of the Mississippi, leaving out Tennessee, between the ages of fifteen and fifty, for Gen. Kemper, for Gen. Lee, which is 800,000, subject to deduction of those between fifteen and seventeen, disabled, 250,000, leaving 550,000—enough for defense for several years yet, if the Bureau of Conscription were abolished and a better system adopted.

It is said the draft is postponed or abandoned in the United States. I hope so.

Two 32-pounder guns passed down the river to-day on this side. We shall probably hear from them soon, and then, perhaps—lose them.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2p. 280

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