Snowed a few inches
in depth during the night clear and cool morning.
The new year begins
with the new rumor that Gen. Hood has turned upon Gen. Thomas and beaten him.
This is believed by many. Hood's army was not destroyed, and he retreated from
before Nashville with some 20,000 men. Doubtless he lost many cannon; but the Federal
accounts of his disaster were probably much exaggerated.
The cabinet still
remains.
The President is
considered really a man of ability, and eminently qualified to preside over the
Confederate States, if independence were attained and we had peace. But he is
probably not equal to the role he is now called upon to play. He has not the
broad intellect requisite for the gigantic measures needed in such a crisis,
nor the health and physique for the labors devolving on him. Besides he is too
much of a politician still to discard his old prejudices, and persists in
keeping aloof from him, and from commanding positions, all the great statesmen
and patriots who contributed most in the work of preparing the minds of the
people for resistance to Northern domination. And the consequence is that many
of these influential men are laboring to break down his administration, or else
preparing the people for a return to the old Union. The disaffection is intense
and wide-spread among the politicians of 1860, and consternation and despair
are expanding among the people. Nearly all desire to see Gen. Lee at the head
of affairs; and the President is resolved to yield the position to no man
during his term of service. Nor would Gen. Lee take it.
The proposition to
organize an army of negroes gains friends; because the owners of the slaves are
no longer willing to fight themselves, at least they are not as "eager for
the fray" as they were in 1861; and the armies must be replenished, or
else the slaves will certainly be lost.
Thus we begin the
new year—Heaven only knows how we shall end it! I trust we may be in a better
condition then. Of one thing I am certain, the PEOPLE are capable of achieving
independence, if they only had capable men in all departments of the
government.
The President was at
St. Paul's to-day, with a knit woolen cap on his head. Dr. Minnegerode preached
a sermon against the croakers. His son has been appointed a midshipman by the President.
SOURCE: John
Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate
States Capital, Volume 2, p. 371-2
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