The Washington correspondent of the Philadelphia Enquirer says: “Lieutenant Clure, of the 92d Ohio, with 28 rebel prisoners from the Shenandoah Valley, arrived to-day, and while en route to the Provost Marshal’s office they were taken to a Secession house on C Street, and feasted for several hours, and then taken to a number of drinking saloons by Secesh sympathisers.”
July 11th. Joseph C. Paul, a private in Company K, Pennsylvania Zouaves, says in a letter dated James river, July 5th, to a friend in Philadelphia, “We are now lying near James river, and rest assured that if the enemy attack us again before we are prepared, it will not be a loss of five nights’ sleep to us as before, as we will occupy Richmond as sure as fate. This is the opinion of distinguished officers.”
Lincoln has gone on a visit to the army of the Potomac, accompanied by P. H. Watson, assistant Secretary of War.
The “Philadelphia Evening Bulletin” says General Burnside has promptly brought his fine division of veterans, who have won laurels at Roanoke Island and Newbern, to James river, and they are now joined to the army of the Potomac.
Captain Gibson tells us to-day that arrangements have been made for an immediate exchange of prisoners.
The Philadelphia Enquirer says, “Major Trumbull, of the first Connecticut artillery, has arrived in town, and is fast recovering from an attack of the Chickahominy fever.” It is presumed that the Major referred to is not the only one suffering from the Chickahominy fever about this time.
July 12th. Gold is riz, and, in the language of the poet, it threatens to be rizzer. Some Yankee financiers argue that gold is not up, but that paper is down! This question between pecuniary tweedledee and tweedledum seems to puzzle the quid nuncs since the retreat of McClellan.
A sergeant escaped from the barracks last night. He lives in Baltimore. To all intents and purposes Captain Gibson, in command of this post, is a prisoner on the island, whose only consolation seems to be to exercise his petty tyranny over “rebel” prisoners. There are men whose nature has a peculiar affinity for anything petty, mean, and bad. They fly upon it like a vulture upon carrion. I discover that it is the policy of the Yankees to allow those in immediate attendance on the inmates of prisons to seem to grant them some indulgences at times, in order to gain their confidence, and arrive at their secrets. Some ladies from Delaware visited the Fort yesterday, and when concealed behind pillars, so as not to be seen by the officers of the Fort, they waved their handkerchiefs at the prisoners. After they left, they sent a request, clandestinely, to them for “Secession buttons.” The ladies, as a general thing, North and South, seem to be with us. This speaks well for the heart of the Southern people, for this is the commodity ladies deal in.
July 13th. From Yankee newspapers it seems that gold has become scarce, since it has risen so in value:
The Gold and the Silver