Bright and windy. The Virginia Assembly has passed resolutions instructing the Senators to vote for the negro troops bill—so Mr. Hunter must obey or resign.
It is authoritatively announced in the papers that Gen. J. E. Johnston has taken command of the army in front of Sherman (a perilous undertaking), superseding Beauregard.
Grant is said to be massing his troops on our right, to precipitate them upon the South Side Railroad. Has Hill marched his corps away to North Carolina? If so, Richmond is in very great danger.
The Examiner to-day labors to show that the evacuation of Richmond would be fatal to the cause The Sentinel says it has authority for saying that Richmond will not be given up. "Man proposes—God disposes." It is rumored that Fayetteville, N. C., has fallen into the hands of the enemy.
I saw Col. Northrop, late Commissary-General, to-day. He looks down, dark, and dissatisfied. Lee's army eats without him.
I see nothing of Lieut.-Col. Ruffin. He always looks down and darkly. Gen. Breckinridge seems to have his heart in the cause— not his soul in his pocket, like most of his predecessors.
I saw admiral Buchanan to-day, limping a little. He says the enemy tried to shoot away his legs to keep him from dancing at his granddaughter's wedding, but won't succeed.
Robert Tyler told me that it was feared Governor Brown, and probably Stephens and Toombs, were sowing disaffection among the Georgia troops, hoping to get them out of the army; but that if faction can be kept down thirty days, our cause would assume a new phase. He thinks Breckinridge will make a successful Secretary. The President and Gen. Lee were out at Camp Lee to-day, urging the returned soldiers (from captivity) to forego the usual furlough and enter upon the spring campaign now about to begin. The other day, when the President made a speech to them, he was often interrupted by cries of "furlough!"
The ladies in the Treasury Department are ordered to Lynchburg, whither the process of manufacturing Confederate States notes is to be transferred.
A committee of the Virginia Assembly waited on the President on Saturday, who told them it was no part of his intention to evacuate Richmond. But some construed his words as equivocal. Tobacco, cotton, etc. are leaving the city daily. The city is in danger.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 434-5
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