Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: Sunday, January 1, 1865

Snowed a few inches in depth during the night clear and cool morning.

The new year begins with the new rumor that Gen. Hood has turned upon Gen. Thomas and beaten him. This is believed by many. Hood's army was not destroyed, and he retreated from before Nashville with some 20,000 men. Doubtless he lost many cannon; but the Federal accounts of his disaster were probably much exaggerated.

The cabinet still remains.

The President is considered really a man of ability, and eminently qualified to preside over the Confederate States, if independence were attained and we had peace. But he is probably not equal to the role he is now called upon to play. He has not the broad intellect requisite for the gigantic measures needed in such a crisis, nor the health and physique for the labors devolving on him. Besides he is too much of a politician still to discard his old prejudices, and persists in keeping aloof from him, and from commanding positions, all the great statesmen and patriots who contributed most in the work of preparing the minds of the people for resistance to Northern domination. And the consequence is that many of these influential men are laboring to break down his administration, or else preparing the people for a return to the old Union. The disaffection is intense and wide-spread among the politicians of 1860, and consternation and despair are expanding among the people. Nearly all desire to see Gen. Lee at the head of affairs; and the President is resolved to yield the position to no man during his term of service. Nor would Gen. Lee take it.

The proposition to organize an army of negroes gains friends; because the owners of the slaves are no longer willing to fight themselves, at least they are not as "eager for the fray" as they were in 1861; and the armies must be replenished, or else the slaves will certainly be lost.

Thus we begin the new year—Heaven only knows how we shall end it! I trust we may be in a better condition then. Of one thing I am certain, the PEOPLE are capable of achieving independence, if they only had capable men in all departments of the government.

The President was at St. Paul's to-day, with a knit woolen cap on his head. Dr. Minnegerode preached a sermon against the croakers. His son has been appointed a midshipman by the President.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 371-2

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 14, 1864

Bright, pleasant day. The city is full of generals—Lee and his son (the one just returned from captivity), Longstreet, Whiting, Wise, Hoke, Morgan (he was ordered by Gen. Cooper to desist from his enterprise in the West), Evans, and many others. Some fourteen attended St. Paul's (Episcopal) Church yesterday, where the President worships. Doubtless they are in consultation on the pressing needs of the country.

About noon to-day a dispatch came from Lieut.-Col. Cole, Gen. Lee's principal commissary, at Orange Court House, dated 12th inst., saying the army was out of meat, and had but one day's rations of bread. This I placed in the hands of the Secretary myself, and he seemed roused by it. Half an hour after, I saw Col. Northrop coming out of the department with a pale face, and triumphant, compressed lips. He had indorsed on the dispatch, before it came—it was addressed to him—that the state of things had come which he had long and often predicted, and to avert which he had repeatedly suggested the remedy; but the Secretary would not!

No wonder the generals are in consultation, for all the armies are in the same lamentable predicament—to the great triumph of Col. N., whose prescience is triumphantly vindicated! But Gen. Wise, when I mentioned these things to him, said we would starve in the midst of plenty, meaning that Col. N was incompetent to hold the position of Commissary-General.

At 2 P.M. a dispatch (which I likewise placed in the hands of the Secretary) came from Gen. Pickett, with information that thirteen of the enemy's transports passed Yorktown yesterday with troops from Norfolk, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, Washington City, etc.—such was the report of the signal corps. They also reported that Gen. Meade would order a general advance, to check Gen. Lee. What all this means I know not, unless it be meant to aid Gen. Kilpatrick to get back the way he came with his raiding cavalry—or else Gen. Lee's army is in motion, even while he is here. It must do something, or starve.

L. P. Walker, the first Secretary of War, is here, applying for an appointment as judge advocate of one of the military courts.

Gen. Bragg is at work. I saw by the President's papers today, that the Secretary's recommendation to remit the sentence to drop an officer was referred to him. He indorsed on it that the sentence was just, and ought to be executed. The President then indorsed: “Drop him.—J. D.”

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 170-1