We have no news to-day, but there are rumors that Grant is preparing to abandon his position. He cannot remain where he is, inactive. There is a scarcity of water, and the location is unhealthy.
We had corn bread and gravy for dinner, with a tremendous dessert, the suggestion of Custis, consisting of whortleberry flitters, with butter and sugar sauce, costing about $16.
July 7th.—Hot and dry, but a light shower at 2 p.m., laying the dust.
A letter from Gen. Gilmer states that the Danville Railroad will not be fully repaired before the last of this month. But there is a good wagon road, and the army can be supplied by wagons when the cars cannot run, some 25 miles.
There is an idle rumor that Wilmington has been taken by the enemy. This, indeed, would hurt us. But we get neither letters nor dispatches from beyond Petersburg.
Last week, when the local forces were recalled, one of the clerks in the Treasury Department, upon being dismissed, fell upon his lieutenant, who had insulted him while in the military service, and as a civilian, gave him a beating. To-day the officer, after consulting his lieutenant-colonel commanding, and, it is said, the Secretary of War, sent a subaltern to the department to arrest the clerk, who resisted. The subaltern said he acted by authority of the lieutenant-colonel and the Secretary of War, and would arrest him and throw him in prison, if he had to come with force enough to pull down the building. To all this the Secretary of the Treasury demurred, and made a formal complaint to the President, who most indignantly indorsed on the paper that the conduct of the officer was “very reprehensible,” that if when the offense was committed, the battalion had been dismissed, the military authority of the officers ceased, and as civil officers, all were on the same footing. He ordered the Secretary to make this known to the officers, etc. None believe now that the President ever threatened to turn the clerks out of office, as represented, nor wished them put in the army, as hinted.
July 8th.—Clear; hot and dusty.
The news of the falling back of Gen. Johnston on Atlanta, Ga., causes no uneasiness, for the destruction of Sherman’s army is deemed the more certain the farther he penetrates.
There is nothing of interest from Petersburg, but there are rumors of demoralization and disaffection in Grant’s army. His men suffer for water.
Still we get no letters from the South, beyond the point on the Danville Railroad reached by the raiders, who tore up 18 miles of the track.