Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: February 22, 1865

Bright and frosty. A fine February for fruit. Yesterday the Senate postponed action on the Negro bill. What this means I cannot conjecture, unless there are dispatches from abroad, with assurances of recognition based upon stipulations of emancipation, which cannot be carried into effect without the consent of the States, and a majority of these seem in a fair way of falling into the hands of the Federal generals.

The House passed the bill to abolish quartermasters and commissaries in a modified form, excepting those collecting tax in kind; and this morning those officers in this city under forty-five years of age advertise the location of their places of business as collectors of tax in kind, Capt. Wellford, a kinsman of Mr. Seddon, among the rest, the very men the bill was intended to remove! Alas for Breckinridge and independence!

The following dispatch has just been received from Gen. R. E. Lee :

HEADQUARTERS, February 22d, 1865.

 

From dispatches of Gen. Bragg of 21st, I conclude he has abandoned Cape Fear River. He says he is embarrassed by prisoners. Enemy refuses to receive or entertain propositions. I expect no change will be made by Gen. Grant. It is his policy to delay. Have directed prisoners to be sent to Richmond by rail or highway, as may be most practicable; if wrong, correct it.

 

R. E. LEE.

This looks like the speedy fall of Wilmington, but not of Richmond.

To-day is the anniversary of the birth of Washington, and of the inauguration of Davis; but I hear of no holiday. Not much is doing, however, in the departments; simply a waiting for calamities, which come with stunning rapidity. The next news, I suppose, will be the evacuation of Wilmington! Then Raleigh may tremble. Unless there is a speedy turn in the tide of affairs, confusion will reign supreme and universally.

We have here now some 4000 or 5000 paroled prisoners returned by the Federal authorities, without sufficient food for them, and soon there may be 10,000 Federal prisoners from Wilmington, which it seems cannot be exchanged there. Is it the policy of their own government to starve them?

Mr. Burgwyn, of North Carolina, writes to the President (11th inst.) that some 15,000 bales of cotton are locked up in Wilmington, belonging to speculators, awaiting the coming of the enemy, when the city will certainly fall into their hands. He says Gen. Bragg's orders regarding its removal are wholly disregarded; and he implores the President to prevent its falling into the enemy's hands, and disgracing his State as Georgia was disgraced by the cotton taken at Savannah. He says these speculators have an understanding with the enemy. The President indorses, simply, "For attention.—J. D."

I bought quarter ounce early York cabbage-seed to day at $10 per ounce.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 429-30