Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: January 20, 1864

The Senate bill to give increased compensation to the civil officers of the government in Richmond was tabled in the House yesterday, on the motion of Mr. Smith, of North Carolina, who spoke against it.

Major-Gen. Gilmer, Chief of the Engineer Bureau, writes that the time has arrived when no more iron should be used by the Navy Department; that no iron-clads have effected any good, or are likely to effect any; and that all the iron should be used to repair the roads, else we shall soon be fatally deficient in the means of transportation. And Col. Northrop, Commissary-General, says he has been trying to concentrate a reserve supply of grain in Richmond, for eight months; and such has been the deficiency in means of transportation, that the effort has failed.

Gov. Milton, of Florida, writes that the fact of quartermasters and commissaries, and their agents, being of conscript age, and being speculators all, produces great demoralization. If the rich will not fight for their property, the poor will not fight for them.

Col. Northrop recommends that each commissary and quartermaster be allowed a confidential clerk of conscript age. That would deprive the army of several regiments of men.

The weather is bright again, but cool.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 132

Major-General William T. Sherman to “an Old Resident of St. Louis, Missouri,” September 8, 1864

IN THE FIELD, ATLANTA, GA., Sept. 8, 1864

DEAR SIR:—Yr kind note of Aug. 24 from Rochester, N. Y. reached me here and I am really thankful for the warm terms in which you write, and I know you will not feel the less kindly when you know we are inside Atlanta.  I don’t see why we cant have some sense about negroes as well as about horses, mules, iron, copper, etc.—but say nigger in the U. S. and from Sumner to Atty Kelly to the whole country goes crazy.  I never thought my nigger letter would get into the papers but since it has I lay low—I like niggers well enough, as niggers, but when fools & idiots try & make niggers better than ourselves I have an opinion.  We are also ruining our country in this bounty & substitute business.  It only amounts to spending money, it don’t make a single soldier.

Fools think they can buy off, and will spend their money on some worthless substitute who shirks and as is of no use & after spending all his money will have to serve besides.

Well this thing will work out its natural solution.

W. T. SHERMAN,

Maj. Gen.

SOURCES: “Negroes in Their Places,” The Montgomery Advertiser, Montgomery, Alabama, Tuesday, December 17, 1889, p. 4; “General Sherman on ‘Niggers,’” The Sentinel, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Thursday, December 26, 1899, p. 1.

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: November 12, 1863

No accounts of any fighting, but plenty of battles looked for.

A. A. Little writes to the Secretary of War from Fredericksburg, that the attempt to remove the iron from the Aquia Railroad by the government having failed, now is the time for private enterprise to effect it. If the Secretary “will say the word,” it can be done. He says the iron is worth “millions, its weight in gold!” Will Mr. Seddon let it be saved? Yes, indeed.

Mr. Heyliger, agent at Nassau, writes on the 3d instant (just a week ago), that he is shipping bacon by every steamer (three or four per week), leather, percussion caps, and a large amount of quartermaster's stores. But the supply of lead and saltpeter is exhausted, and he hopes the agents in Europe will soon send more. About one in every four steamers is captured by the enemy. We can afford that.

The President sent over to-day, for the perusal of the Secretary of War, a long letter from Gen. Howell Cobb, dated at Atlanta, on the 7th instant. He had just returned from a visit to Bragg's army, and reports that there is a better feeling among the officers for Gen. Bragg, who is regaining their confidence. However, he says it is to be wished that more cordiality subsisted between Generals Bragg and ———, his ——— in command. He thinks Generals B—— and C—— might be relieved without detriment to the service, if they cannot be reconciled to Bragg. He hints at some important movement, and suggests co-operation from Virginia by a demonstration in East Tennessee.

It is generally believed that France has followed the example of England, by seizing our rams. Thus the whole world seems combined against us. And Mr. Seward has made a speech, breathing fire and destruction unless we submit to Lincoln as our President. He says he was fairly elected President for four years of the whole United States, and there can be no peace until he is President of all the States, to which he is justly entitled. A war for the President!

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 95-6

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: November 7, 1863

No news from any quarter, except the continued bombardment of the debris of Fort Sumter, and the killing and wounding of some 10 or 12 men there — but that is not news.

There is a pause, — a sort of holding of the breath of the people, as if some event of note was expected. The prices of food and fuel are far above the purses of all except speculators, and an explosion must happen soon, of some sort. People will not perish for food in the midst of plenty.

The press, a portion rather, praises the President for his carefulness in making a tour of the armies and ports south of us; but as he retained Gen. Bragg in command, how soon the tune would change if Bragg should meet with disaster!

Night before last some of the prisoners on Belle Isle (we have some 13,000 altogether in and near the city) were overheard by the guard to say they must escape immediately, or else it would be too late, as cannon were to be planted around them. Our authorities took the alarm, and increasing the guard, did plant cannon so as to rake them in every direction in the event of their breaking out of their prison bounds. It is suspected that this was a preconcerted affair, as a full division of the enemy has been sent to Newport News, probably to co-operate with the prisoners. Any attempt now must fail, unless, indeed, there should be a large number of Union sympathizers in the city to assist them.

Several weeks ago it was predicted in the Northern papers that Richmond would be taken in some mysterious manner, and that there was a plan for the prisoners of war to seize it by a coup de main, may be probable. But the scheme was impracticable. What may be the condition of the city, and the action of the people a few weeks hence, if relief be not afforded by the government, I am afraid to conjecture. The croakers say five millions of “greenbacks,” and cargoes of provisions, might be more effectual in expelling the Confederate Government and restoring that of the United States than all of Meade's army. And this, too, they allege, when there is abundance in the country. Many seem to place no value on the only money we have in circulation. The grasping farmers refuse to get out their grain, saying they have as much Confederate money as they want, and the government seems determined to permit the perishable tithes to perish rather than allow the famishing people to consume them. Surely, say the croakers, such a policy cannot achieve independence. No, it must be speedily changed, or else worse calamities await us than any we have experienced.

Old Gen. Duff Green, after making many fortunes and losing them, it seems, is to die poor at last, and he is now nearly eighty years old. Last year he made a large contract to furnish the government with iron, his works being in Tennessee, whence he has been driven by the enemy. And now he says the depreciation of the money will make the cost of producing the iron twice as much as he will get for it. And worse, he has bought a large lot of sugar which would have realized a large profit, but the commissary agent has impressed it, and will not pay him cost for it. All he can do is to get a small portion of it back for the consumption of his employees, provided he returns to Tennessee and fulfills his iron contract.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 91-2

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: November 2, 1863

Gen. Lee writes that he will endeavor to protect the workmen while removing the iron at Aquia Creek, but he fears the work has been too long delayed. The government has been too slow.

Gen. Sam Jones writes from Abingdon that his cavalry was at Jonesborough on the 30th ult., although the enemy's raiding parties were on this side. He says if he had a little more infantry, he could soon clear East Tennessee of the foe; and asks that an order from Gen. Cooper (A. and I. G.), calling for two of his best regiments of cavalry, be revoked.

In Gen. Lee's recent campaign beyond the Rappahannock, our losses in killed, wounded, and missing amounted to 1740; the enemy's losses must have been three times that number.

The President made a speech in Charleston on the 1st instant. We have copies from him to-day of his correspondence with Gen. Bragg since he left Chickamauga field. Gen. B. says he will immediately call for Hardee's brigades, promised him, and without delay commence operations on the enemy's left (it is too wet on the right), and drive Burnside out of East Tennessee. But he complains of Gen. Buckner, who assumes to have an independent command in East Tennessee and West Virginia. The President replies that neither Bragg nor Buckner has jurisdiction over Gen. Jones in West Virginia, but that he gets his orders from Richmond. He does not promise to remove Buckner, whom he deems only impatient, but says he must be subject to Bragg's orders, etc.

Gen. Bragg has applied for Gen. Forrest (who went some time since to Mobile and tendered his resignation, in a pet with Gen. Bragg) to command a cavalry force in North Mississippi and West Tennessee. In short, the President is resolved to sustain Gen. Bragg at the head of the army in Tennessee in spite of the tremendous prejudice against him in and out of the army. And unless Gen. Bragg does something more for the cause before Congress meets a month hence, we shall have more clamor against the government than ever. But he has quashed the charges (of Bragg) against Gen. Polk, and assigned him, without an investigation, to an important command.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 87-8

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: October 29, 1863

Gen. Lee writes (a few days since), from Brandy Station, that Meade seems determined to advance again; that troops are going up the Potomac to Washington, and that volunteers from New York have been ordered thither. He asks the Secretary to ascertain if there be really any Federal force in the York River; for if the report be correct of hostile troops being there, it may be the enemy's intention to make another raid on the railroad. The general says we have troops enough in Southwestern Virginia; but they are not skillfully commanded.

After all, I fear we shall not get the iron from the Aquia Creek Railroad. In the summer the government was too slow, and now it is probably too slow again, as the enemy are said to be landing there. It might have been removed long ago, if we had had a faster Secretary.

Major S. Hart, San Antonio, Texas, writes that the 10,000 (the number altered again) superior rifles captured by the French off the Rio Grande last summer, were about to fall into the hands of United States cruisers; and he has sent for them, hoping the French will turn them over to us.

Gen. Winder writes the Secretary that the Commissary-General will let him have no meat for the 13,000 prisoners; and he will not be answerable for their safe keeping without it. The Quartermaster-General writes that the duty of providing for them is in dispute between the two bureaus, and he wants the Secretary to decide between them. If the Secretary should be very slow, the prisoners will suffer.

Yesterday a set (six) of cups and saucers, white, and not china, sold at auction for $50.

Mr. Henry, Senator from Tennessee, writes the Secretary that if Ewell were sent into East Tennessee with a corps, and Gen. Johnston were to penetrate into Middle Tennessee, forming a junction north of Chattanooga, it would end the war in three months.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 83-4

Robert Toombs to Congressman Alexander H. Stephens, January 24, 1845

Washington [ga.], Jany. 24th, 1845.

Dear Stephens, . . . I can hear nothing of local politics. There is a dead calm. The report of the Finance Committee is doing us much good. It has struck the Locos dumb. Crawford's administration has certainly been eminently successfull and has made him very popular. If we can get him to run again we can carry the State and retrieve our fortunes in Georgia. The course of the Democracy in Congress on Texas and the tariff is doing them mischief in this State, and if our local press would handle those questions now in the present calm of the public mind much could be made out of them; but very few of our papers are worth a straw. As soon as I get able I shall open upon them in several of the papers. Now is the proper time to affect the public mind. I did not see how you voted on that Rail Road iron question. That duty ought to be repealed or greatly reduced. It should be a low revenue duty only. 1st. Because it is greatly to the interest of the country to encourage internal improvements and thereby cheapen internal transportation which benefits all classes and especially the agricultural classes. 2ondly. R. R. iron not being an article of general consumption, competition is not likely to become sufficient within a reasonable time to cheapen the article and compensate for the duty. Hence the duty will continue to be a bounty to the manufacturer, and under that state of facts no article ought to be protected. I am able only to suggest my objections and not enforce them. The most foolish thing Mr. Clay did during the campaign was to write that foolish letter to Pennsylvania pledging his opposition to any modification of the tariff of 1842. It is a good law but it is not perfect; nor did human ingenuity ever make a perfect revenue law. It never will. His letter to Bronson and his N. Carolina speech contained the true doctrine on the tariff. I am unwilling to go an inch further. I care not a fig for the clamors of that American Beotia (Pennsylvania). If the whole duty on R. R. iron was repealed her agonies would give me no pain. Annexation by Congress gives me considerable trouble. I am in great doubt about it. The words of the Constitution ex vi termini are sufficient to embrace the case, and I am clear from the action of the Convention that the Convention did not intend to limit the power to the admission of States from the then territory of the United States. I think the Convention were then looking to the acquisition of Louisiana. It was absolutely necessary to our western States. I am therefore clear in the opinion, nothwithstanding Mr. Jefferson's opinion to the contrary, that the acquisition of Louisiana by treaty and then its admission was perfectly constitutional; but I am not clear that it would have been constitutional without such previous acquisition by treaty. But from the best reflection I can give it, it being a question of doubt, I would decide it in favour of the popular will and, I therefore honestly believe, the public safety and the safety of the Union, and go for Foster's plan. Benton's division of the territory will not answer. I would yield nothing upon [the] slavery question below 36½ degrees latitude — and I don't like that. Congress has no right to interfere with the social relations of the inhabitants of any State. And the Missouri Compromise was all wrong and could only be defended because it practically yielded nothing.

SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p. 60-2

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: April 29, 1863

Gen. Beauregard is eager to have completed the “Torpedo Ram,” building at Charleston, and wants a “great gun” for it. But the Secretary of the Navy wants all the iron for mailing his gun-boats. Mr. Miles, of South Carolina, says the ram will be worth two gun-boats.

The President of the Manassas Gap Railroad says his company is bringing all its old iron to the city. Wherefore?

The merchants of Mobile are protesting against the impressment by government agents of the sugar and molasses in the city. They say this conduct will double the prices. So Congress did not and cannot restrain the military authorities.

Gen. Humphrey Marshall met with no success in Kentucky. He writes that none joined him, when he was led to expect large accessions, and that he could get neither stock nor hogs. Alas, poor Kentucky! The brave hunters of former days have disappeared from the scene.

The Secretary of War was not permitted to see my letter which the President referred to him, in relation to an alphabetical analysis of the decisions of the departments. The Assistant Secretary, Judge Campbell, and the young Chief of the Bureau of War, sent it to the Secretary of the Navy, who, of course, they knew had no decisions to be preserved. Mr. Kean, I learn, indorsed a hearty approval of the plan, and said he would put it in operation in the War Office. But he said (with his concurrence, no doubt) that Judge Campbell had suggested it some time before. Well, that may be; but I first suggested it a year ago, and before either Mr. K. or Judge Campbell were in office. Office makes curious changes in men! Still, I think Mr. Seddon badly used in not being permitted to see the communications the President sends him. I have the privilege, and will use it, of sending papers directly to the Secretary.

Gen. Lee telegraphs the President to-day to send troops to Gordonsville, and to hasten forward supplies. He says Lt.-Gen. Longstreet's corps might now be sent from Suffolk to him. Something of magnitude is on the tapis, whether offensive or defensive, I could not judge from the dispatch.

We had hail this evening as large as pullets' eggs.

The Federal papers have accounts of brilliant successes in Louisiana and Missouri, having taken 1600 prisoners in the former State and defeated Price at Cape Girardeau in the latter. Whether these accounts are authentic or not we have no means of knowing yet. We have nothing further from Mississippi.

It is said there is some despondency in Washington.

Our people will die in the last ditch rather than be subjugated and see the confiscation of their property.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 301-2

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: November 23, 1862

The cars which came in from the North last night brought a great many women, children, and negroes from Fredericksburg and its vicinity. The benevolent and patriotic citizens here had, I believe, made some provision for their accommodation. But the enemy had not yet shelled the town.

There is a rumor that Jackson was to appear somewhere in the rear of the enemy, and that the Federal stores which could not be moved with the army had been burnt at Manassas.

Yesterday the President remitted the sentence of a poor lad, sentenced to ball-and-chain for six months, for cowardice, etc. He had endured the penalty three months. I like this act, for the boy had enlisted without the consent of his parents, and was only sixteen years of age.

J. R. Anderson & Co. (having drawn $500,000 recently on the contract) have failed to furnish armor for the gun-boats — the excuse being that iron could not be had for their rolling-mills. The President has ordered the Secretaries of the Navy and War to consult on the propriety of taking railroad iron, on certain tracks, for that purpose.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 195

Southern News

BEFORE CORINTH, May 18.

The Macon (Ga.) Telegraph condemns in severe language the conduct of the rebel troops at Bridgeport, “by which the most important gateway to our State was opened to the enemy, and possession of all our rich mines and deposits of coal, iron and saltpetre placed in imminent danger.”

Martial law has been proclaimed over Charleston and ten miles surrounding.

The Memphis Appeal says that the Government wants and must have all tin roofs on cotton sheds in that city.

The Vicksburg Citizen of the 9th says nothing was heard of the Federal fleet at [Tunica], yesterday.

A large frigate supposed to be the Brooklyn passed Bayou Sara at 9 o’clock, A. M. on the 8th, going down.

The Baton Rouge Advocate has closed doors and suspended publication, on account of the approach of the Federal gunboats.

Col. Posser, commanding the post at Memphis, publishes a special order, by order of Beauregard, requiring all banks, persons, and corporations to take Confederate money at par, and all persons will distinctly understand that nothing in the least degree calculated to discredit the operations of the Government will be tolerated, as anything but disloyalty.

One Richmond correspondent of the Appeal mentions with great pain, the large amount of sick confined in the hospitals at Richmond and vicinity.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Tuesday Morning, May 20, 1862, p. 1

Rumored Surrender of Ft. Donelson

BALTIMORE, Feb. 14.

Parties who came by the Old Point boat say it was reported in Norfolk, yesterday, that Ft. Donelson had been captured.  Our dispatches from Fort Monroe make no allusion to it.

A reliable passenger from Old Point says some workmen, from the city works at Richmond, say they left there for want of work.  So great was the scarcity of iron and coal that the works there were being suspended.  Coal was enormously high.

The men say there are few, if any, cannon left at Richmond, all having been sent away from time to time to other points.  Very few of the defenses there have any cannon mounted.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, February 17, 1862, p. 1