But we have good news from England—if it be true. The New York Express says Lord Lyons is instructed by England, and perhaps on the part of France and other powers, to demand of the United States an armistice; and in the event of its not being acceded to, the governments will recognize our independence. One of the President’s personal attendants told me this news was regarded as authentic by our government. I don’t regard it so.
Yesterday the whole batch of “Plug Ugly” policemen, in the Provost Marshal’s “department,” were summarily dismissed by Gen. Winder, for “malfeasance, corruption, bribery, and incompetence.” These are the branches: the roots should be plucked up, and Gen. Winder and his Provost Marshal ought to resign. I believe the President ordered the removal.
October 31st.—If it be not a Yankee electioneering trick to operate at the election in New York, on the fourth of November, the Northern correspondence with Europe looks very much like speedy intervention in our behalf.
Winder has really dismissed all his detectives excepting Cashmeyer, about the worst of them.
If we gain our independence by the valor of our people, or assisted by European intervention, I wonder whether President Davis will be regarded by the world as a second Washington? What will his own country say of him? I know not, of course; but I know what quite a number here say of him now. They say he is a small specimen of a statesman, and no military chieftain at all. And worse still, that he is a capricious tyrant, for lifting up Yankees and keeping down great Southern men. Wise, Floyd, etc. are kept in obscurity; while Pemberton, who commanded the Massachusetts troops, under Lincoln, in April, 1861, is made a lieutenant-general; G. W. Smith and Lovell, who were office-holders in New York, when the battle of Manassas was fought, are made major-generals, and the former put in command over Wise in Virginia, and all the generals in North Carolina. Ripley, another Northern general, was sent to South Carolina, and Winder, from Maryland, has been allowed to play the despot in Richmond and Petersburg. Washington was maligned.
CHAPTER XX.
General Lee in Richmond: beard white.—First proposition to trade cotton to the enemy.—Secretary in favor of it.—All the letters come through my hands again.—Lee falling back.—5000 negroes at work on the fortifications.—Active operations looked for.—Beauregard advises non-combatants to leave the city.—Semmes’s operations.—Making a nation.—Salt works lost in Virginia.—Barefooted soldiers.—Intrigues of Butler in New Orleans.—Northern army advancing everywhere.—Breach between the President and Secretary of War.—President’s servant arrested for robbing the Treasury.—Gen. J. E. Johnston in town.—Secretary has resigned.—Hon. J. A. Seddon appointed Secretary of War.—The enemy marching on Fredericksburg.—Lee writes that he will be ready for them.—Kentuckians will not be hog drivers.—Women and children flying from the vicinity of Fredericksburg.—Fears for Wilmington.—No beggars.—Quiet on the Rappahannock.—M. Paul, French Consul, saved the French tobacco.—Gen. Johnston goes West.—President gives Gov. Pettit full authority to trade cotton to France.
November 1st.—Gen. Winder’s late policemen have fled the city. Their monstrous crimes are the theme of universal execration. But I reported them many months ago, and Gen. Winder was cognizant of their forgeries, correspondence with the enemy, etc. The Secretary of War, and the President himself, were informed of them, but it was thought to be a “small matter.”