H. C. ———, a mad private, and Northern man, in a Georgia
Regiment, writes to the President, proposing to take some 300 to 500 men of
resolution and assassinate the leading public men of the United States — the
war Abolitionists, I suppose. The President referred the paper, without notice,
to the Secretary of War.
Gen. Whiting writes that Wilmington is in imminent danger
from a coup de main, as he has but one regiment available in the
vicinity. He says he gives the government fair warning, and full information of
his condition; asking a small brigade, which would enable him to keep the enemy
at bay until adequate reinforcements could arrive. He also wants two Whitworth
guns to keep the blockaders at a more respectful distance, since they captured
one steamer from us, recently, nine miles below the city, and blew up a ship
which was aground. He says it is tempting Providence to suffer that
(now) most important city in the Confederate States to remain a day liable to
sudden capture, which would effectually cut us off from the rest of the world.
Gen. Beauregard telegraphs for a detail of 50 seamen for his
iron-clads, which he intends shall support Sumter, if, as he anticipates, the
enemy should make a sudden attempt to seize it — or rather its debris — where
he still has some guns, still under our flag. None of his vessels have
full crews. This paper was referred to the Secretary of the Navy, and he
returned it with an emphatic negative, saying that the War Department
had failed to make details from the army to the navy, in accordance with an act
of Congress, and hence none of our war steamers had full crews.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p.
24
