“This intelligence was brought by an officer who left the place on Sunday, the 5th.
“J. E. Johnston, General.”
We get nothing from Lee himself. Gen. Cooper, the Secretary of War, and Gen. Hill went to the President’s office about one o’clock. They seemed in haste, and excited. The President, too, is sick, and ought not to attend to business. It will kill him, perhaps.
There is serious anxiety now for the fate of Richmond. Will Meade be here in a few weeks? Perhaps so—but, then, Lee may not have quite completed his raid beyond the Potomac.
The Baltimore American, no doubt in some trepidation for the quiescence of that city, gets up a most glowing account of “Meade’s victory”—if it should, indeed, in the sequel, prove to have been one. That Lee fell back, is true; but how many men were lost on each side in killed, wounded, and prisoners—how many guns were taken, and what may be the result of the operations in Pennsylvania and Maryland—of which we have as yet such imperfect accounts—will soon be known.
July 10th.—This is the day of fate—and, without a cloud in the sky, the red sun, dimly seen through the mist (at noonday), casts a baleful light on the earth. It has been so for several days.
Early this morning a dispatch was received from Gen. Beauregard that the enemy attacked the forts in Charleston harbor, and, subsequently, that they were landing troops on Morris Island. Up to 3 o’clock we have no tidings of the result. But if Charleston falls, the government will be blamed for it—since, notwithstanding the remonstrances of Gen. B., the government, members of Congress, and prominent citizens, some 10,000 of his troops were away to save Vicksburg.
About one o’clock to-day the President sent over to the Secretary of War a dispatch from an officer at Martinsburg, stating that Gen. Lee was still at Hagerstown awaiting his ammunition—(has not Col. Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance, been sufficiently vigilant?)—which, however, had arrived at the Potomac. That all the prisoners (number not stated), except those paroled, were at the river. That nothing was known of the enemy—but that cavalry fighting occurred every day. He concluded by saying he did not know whether Lee would advance or recross the river. If he does the latter, in my opinion there will be a great revulsion of feeling in the Confederate States and in the United States.
Another dispatch, from Gen. J. E. Johnston, dated yesterday, at Jackson, Miss., stated that Grant’s army was then within four miles of him, with numbers double his own. But that he would hold the city as long as possible, for its fall would be the loss of the State. I learn a subsequent dispatch announced that fighting had begun. I believe Johnston is intrenched.
To-day Mr. Secretary Seddon requested Attorney-General Watts, if he could do so consistent with duty, to order a nolle prosequi in the District Court of Alabama in the case of Ford, Hurd & Co. for trading with the enemy. Gen. Pemberton had made a contract with them, allowing them to ship cotton to New Orleans, and to bring back certain supplies for the army. But Mr. Attorney-General Watts replied that it was not consistent with his duty to comply, and therefore he demurred to it, as the act they were charged with was in violation of the act of Congress of April 19th, 1862.