June 10th.—Col. Bledsoe sent for me again. This time he wanted me to take charge of the letter room, and superintend the young gentlemen who briefed the letters. This I did very cheerfully; I opened all the letters, and sent to the Secretary the important ones immediately. These, for want of discrimination, had sometimes been suffered to remain unnoticed two or three days, when they required instant action.
June 11th, 12th.—Gen. Smith, the New York street commissioner, had been urged as commander-in-chief.
June 13th.—Gen. Lee is satisfied with the present posture of affairs—and McClellan has no idea of attacking us now. He don’t say what he means to do himself.
June 14th.—The wounded soldiers bless the ladies, who nurse them unceasingly.
June 15th.—What a change! No one now dreams of the loss of the capital.
June 17th.—It is not yet ascertained what amount of ordnance stores we gained from the battle.
June 18th.—Lee is quietly preparing to attack McClellan. The President, who was on the battle-field, is very cheerful.
June 19th.—To-day so many applications were made to the Secretary himself for passports to the armies, and beyond the lines of the Confederate States, that, forgetting the revocation of his former order, he sent a note into the Assistant Secretary, saying he thought a passport agent had been appointed to attend to such cases; and he now directed that it be done. Bledsoe came to me immediately, and said: “Jones, you’ll have to open a passport office again—I shall sign no more.”
June 20th.—Moved once more into the old office.
June 21st.—Gen. Beauregard is doubly doomed. A few weeks ago, when the blackness of midnight brooded over our cause, there were some intimations, I know not whether they were well founded, that certain high functionaries were making arrangements for a flight to France; and Gen. Beauregard getting intimation of an order to move certain sums in bullion in the custody of an Assistant Treasurer in his military department, forbid its departure until he could be certain that it was not destined to leave the Confederacy. I have not learned its ultimate destination; but the victory of the Seven Pines intervening, Gen. Beauregard has been relieved of his command, “on sick leave.” But I know his army is to be commanded permanently by Gen. Bragg. There are charges against Beauregard. It is said the Yankee army might have been annihilated at Shiloh, if Beauregard had fought a little longer.