Batteries Wagner and Gregg and Fort Sumter have been evacuated! But
this is not yet the capture of Charleston. Gen. Beauregard telegraphed
yesterday that he was preparing (after thirty-six hours' incessant bombardment)
to evacuate Morris Island; which was done, I suppose, last night. He feared the
loss of the garrisons, if he delayed longer; and he said Sumter was silenced.
Well, it is understood the great Blakely is in position on Charleston wharf. If
the enemy have no knowledge of its presence, perhaps we shall soon have reports
from it.
Gen. Lee, it is said, takes two corps d’armée to Tennessee, leaving one in Virginia.
But this can be swelled to 50,000 men by the militia, conscripts, etc., which
ought to enable us to stand a protracted siege, provided we can get
subsistence. Fortune is against us now.
Lieut.-Col. Lay reports great defection in North Carolina, and even
says half of Raleigh is against “the Davis Government.”
The Secretary of War has called upon the Governor for all the
available slave labor in the State, to work on the defenses, etc.
The United States flag of truce boat came up to City Point last night, bringing
no prisoners, and nothing else except some dispatches, the nature of which
has not yet transpired.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p.
36
