Early this morning I was at the depot. The superintendent
suggested that I should send some one to Weldon in search of the trunk. He
proffered to pass him free. This was kind; but I desired first to look among
the baggage at the depot, and the baggage-master was called in. Only two were
unclaimed last night; but he said a gentleman had been there early in the
morning looking for his trunk, who stated that by some mistake he had got the wrong
one last night. He said he stopped at the Exchange, and I repaired thither
without delay, where I found my trunk, to the mutual joy of the traveler and
myself. It was sent to the cottage, and the stranger's taken to the hotel. Had
it not been for my lucky discovery, we should have had no spoons, forks, etc.
My wife has obviated one of the difficulties of the
blockade, by a substitute for coffee, which I like very well. It is simply corn
meal, toasted like coffee, and served in the same manner. It costs five or
six cents per pound — coffee, $2.50.
I heard a foolish North Carolinian abusing the
administration to-day. He said, among other things, that the President himself,
and his family, had Northern proclivities. That the President's family, when
they fled from Richmond, in May, took refuge at St. Mary's Hall, Raleigh, the
establishment of the Rev. Dr. Smedes, a Northern man of open and avowed
partiality for the Union; and that the Rev. Dr. Mason of the same place, with
whom they were in intimate association, was a Northern man, and an open
Unionist. That the President's aid, and late Assistant Secretary of State, was
an Englishman, imported from the North; Gen. Cooper, the highest in rank of any
military officer, was a Northern man; Col. Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance, was also a
Northern man; Gen. Lovell, who was in the defeat at Corinth, and who had
surrendered New Orleans, was from Pennsylvania; Gen. Smith, in command of Virginia
and North Carolina, from New York; and Gen. Winder, commanding this metropolis,
a Marylander, and his detectives strangers and aliens, who sold passports to
Lincoln's spies for $100 each. He was furious, and swore all the distresses of the
people were owing to a Nero like despotism, originating in the brain of Benjamin,
the Jew, whose wife lived in Paris.
The Senate, yesterday, passed the following resolutions,
almost unanimously:
1st. Resolved by the Congress of the
Confederate States of America, That no officer of the Confederate
Government is by law empowered to vest Provost Marshals with any
authority whatever over citizens of the Confederate States not belonging to the
land or naval forces thereof or with general police powers and duties for the
preservation of the peace and good order of any city, town, or municipal
district in any State of this Confederacy, and any such exercise of authority
is illegal and void.
2d. Resolved, That no officer of
the Confederate Government has constitutional or other lawful authority to
limit or restrict, or in any manner to control the exercise of the jurisdiction
of the civil judicial tribunals of the States of this Confederacy, vested in
them by the constitutions and laws of the States respectively, and all orders of
any such officer, tending to restrict or control or interfere with the full and
normal exercise of the jurisdiction of such civil judicial tribunals are
illegal and void.
3d. Resolved, That the military
law of the Confederate States is, by the courts and the enactments of Congress,
limited to the land and naval forces and the militia when in actual service,
and to such other persons as are within the lines of any army, navy, corps,
division or brigade of the army of the Confederate States.
Yesterday, the Dispatch contained an article, copied
from the Philadelphia Inquirer, stating that a certain person who had
been in prison here, arrested by order of Gen. Winder, for disloyalty, and for
attempting to convey information to the enemy, had succeeded in obtaining his
release; and, for a bribe of $100, a passport to leave the Confederacy
had been procured from Gen. Winder's alien detectives. The passport is printed
in the Philadelphia paper, and the bearer, the narrative says, has entered the
United States service.
This must have been brought to the attention of the
President; for a lady, seeking a passport to go to her son, sick and in prison
in the North, told me that when she applied to Gen. Winder today, he said the
President had ordered him to issue no more passports. And subsequently
several parties, government agents and others, came to me with orders from the
Secretary (which I retain on file), to issue passports for them. I hope this
may be the end of Winder's reign.
A letter from Gen. Lee states that, in view of certain
movements, he had, without waiting for instructions, delivered the sword,
horse, etc. of Gen. Kearney, lately killed, to his wife, who had made
application for them. The movements referred to we shall know more about
in a few days.
Gen. Van Dorn dispatches the department that his army is
safe; that he took thirteen guns and 700 prisoners. So it was not so disastrous
a defeat. But the idea of charging five times his number!
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 165-7
