Sheridan’s raiders are near the city again, followed and preceded by Wade Hampton and Fitz Lee. Their cannon has been heard all the morning.
Mr. Secretary Memminger has resigned.
June 21st.—Clear and warmer.
Gen. Beauregard has not been removed from his command,—it would be too great a shock to popular sentiment.
The iron-clads went out this morning and proceeded down the river, supported by Custis Lee’s brigade of local troops, including the Departmental Battalion, marching a dozen miles in the sun and dust. More will be on the sick list.
June 22d.—Dry and pleasant.
The city full of idle rumors—that the whole brigade of local troops were captured yesterday—that Gen. Fitz Lee has again been made prisoner, and that another raiding party is threatening the Danville Road, the canal, etc. There is no foundation for any of them, so far as I can learn.
June 23d.—Clear and warm.
The news of the capture of 1600 Federals, 4 guns, etc., yesterday at Petersburg, has put the people here in better humor, which has been bad enough, made so by reported rapes perpetrated by negro soldiers on young ladies in Westmoreland County. There has been talk of vengeance, and no doubt such atrocities cause many more to perish than otherwise would die.
A Mr. Sale, in the West, sends on an extract from a letter from Col. ——, proposing to the government to sell cotton on the Mississippi River for sterling exchange in London, and indicating that in this manner he has large sums to his own credit there, besides $100,000 worth of cotton in this country. Col. —— is a commissary, against whom grave charges have been made frequently, of speculation, etc., but was defended by the Commissary-General.