Warm and cloudy.
Gen. Weitzel
publishes an order to-day, requiring all ministers who have prayed for the
President of the Confederate States to pray hereafter for the President of the
United States. He will not allow them to omit the prayer.
In answer to my
application for permission to take my family to the Eastern Shore of Virginia,
where among their relations and friends shelter and food may be had, Brevet
Brig.-Gen. Ludlow indorsed: "Disallowed-as none but loyal people, who have
taken the oath, are permitted to reside on the Eastern Shore of Virginia."
This paper I left at Judge Campbell's residence (he was out) for his
inspection, being contrary in spirit to the terms he is represented to have
said would be imposed on us.
At 1 P.M. Another
100 guns were fired in Capitol Square, in honor, I suppose, of the surrender of
JOHNSTON's army. I must go and see.
Captain Warner is
still in prison, and no one is allowed to visit him, I learn.
Three P.M. Saw Judge
Campbell, who will lay my paper before the military authorities for
reconsideration to-morrow. He thinks they have acted unwisely. I said to him
that a gentleman's word was better than an enforced oath—and that if
persecution and confiscation are to follow, instead of organized armies we
shall have bands of assassins everywhere in the field, and the stiletto and the
torch will take the place of the sword and the musket-and there can be no solid
reconstruction, etc. He says he told the Confederate States authorities months
ago that the cause had failed, but they would not listen. He said he had
telegraphed something to Lieut.-Gen. Grant to-day.
The salute some say
was in honor of Johnston's surrender—others say it was for Lee's—and others of
Clay's birthday.
SOURCE: John
Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate
States Capital, Volume 2, p. 475-6
