January 22d.—We have reliable intelligence of the sinking of the U. S. gun-boat Hatteras, in the Gulf, by the Alabama. She was iron-clad, and all the officers and crew, with the exception of five, went down.
Gen. Whiting telegraphs to-day for the use of conscripts near Wilmington, in the event of an emergency. Several ships have just come in safely from abroad, and it is said a large number are on the way.
Mr. Miles yesterday reported, from the Military Committee, a bill repealing the existing exemption law, and embracing all male residents between the ages of 18 and 45 years. The President, or Secretary of War, to have authority to grant exemptions in certain cases, if deemed expedient. This ought to give us 200,000 more men. And they will be required.
A resolution was passed demanding of the Commissary and Quartermaster-General the number of their employees capable of performing military duty. It would be well to extend the inquiry to the War Department itself.
A letter from Norfolk states that at a grand ball, in celebration of the emancipation of the negroes, Gen. Vieille opened the dance with a mulatto woman of bad character as his partner; and Mrs. V. had for her partner a negro barber.
January 23d.—The Northern papers are filled with what purports to be the intercepted correspondence of Mr. Benjamin with Messrs. Mason and Slidell. Lord John Russell is berated. The Emperor of France is charged with a design to seize Mexico as a colony, and to recognize Texas separately, making that State in effect a dependency, from which cotton may be procured as an offset to British India. He says the French Consuls in Texas are endeavoring to detach Texas from the Confederacy. If this be a genuine correspondence, it will injure the South; if it be false (if the allegations be false), it will still injure us. I have no doubt of its genuineness; and that Mr. Sanders, once the correspondent of the New York Tribune, was the bearer. If Texas leaves us, so may Louisiana—and the gigantic Houmas speculation may turn out well at last.
Mr. Curry has brought forward a copyright bill; Mr. Foster, of Alabama, has introduced a bill to abolish the passport system—leaving the matter to railroad conductors.
A dispatch from Gen. Bragg assures us that our cavalry are still capturing and destroying large amounts of Rosecrans’s stores on the Cumberland River.
Col. Wall has been elected Senator from New Jersey. They say he is still pale and ill from his imprisonment, for opinion sake. I hope he will speak as boldly in the Senate as out of it.
I met Gen. Davis to-day (the President’s nephew), just from Goldsborough, where his brigade is stationed. He is in fine plumage—and I hope he will prove a game-cock.