July 10th.—I forgot to note in its place a feat of Gen. Stuart and his cavalry, before the recent battles. He made a complete girdle around the enemy, destroying millions of their property, and returned without loss. He was reconnoitering for Jackson, who followed in his track. This made Stuart major-general.
I likewise omitted to note the death of the brave Gen. Ashby, who fell in one of Jackson’s brilliant battles in the Valley. But history will do him justice. [My chronicles are designed to assist history, and to supply the smaller incidents and details which the grand historian would be likely to omit.]
July 11th.—Gen. Howell Cobb has been sent down the river under flag of truce to negotiate a cartel with Gen. Dix for the exchange of prisoners. It was decided that the exchange should be conducted on the basis agreed to between the United States and the British Government during the war of 1812, and all men taken hereafter will be released on parole within ten days after their capture. We have some 8000 prisoners in this city, and altogether, I dare say, a larger number than the enemy have of our men.
July 12th.—Mr. Ould has been appointed agent to effect exchanges of paroled men. He is also acting as judge advocate.
July 13th.—We have some of Gen. Pope’s proclamations and orders. He is simply a braggart, and will meet a braggart’s fate. He announces his purpose to subsist his army in our country, and moreover, he intends to shoot or hang our non-combating citizens that may fall into his hands, in retaliation for the killing of any of his thieving and murdering soldiers by our avenging guerrillas. He says his headquarters will be on his horse, and that he will make no provision for retreat. That he has been accustomed to see the backs of his enemies! Well, we shall see how he will face a Stonewall!
July 14th.—Jackson and Ewell and Stuart are after Pope, but I learn they are not allowed to attempt any enterprise for some weeks yet. Fatal error, I fear. For we have advices at the department that Pope has not now exceeding 20,000 men, but that all the rolling stock of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is ordered West to bring reinforcements. Besides, the United States Government is calling for 600,000 additional men. Then again, McClellan and Burnside will form a junction with Pope, and we will be outnumbered. But the President and Gen. Lee know best what is to be done. We have lost many of the flower of Southern chivalry in the late conflicts.
July 15th.—Gen. Pendleton has given McClellan a scare, and might have hurt him if he had fired lower. He planted a number of batteries (concealed) on the south side of the river, just opposite the enemy’s camp. The river was filled with gun-boats and transports. At a signal, all the guns were fired, at short range, too, for some minutes with great rapidity, and then the batteries were withdrawn. I happened to be awake, and could not conjecture what the rumpus meant. But we fired too high in the dark, and did but little execution. Our shells fell beyond the enemy’s camp on the opposite side of the river. We lost a few men, by accident, mostly. But hereafter in “each bush they fear an officer.”
July 16th.—Gen. Lee is hurrying up reinforcements from the South, old regiments and conscripts, and pays very little attention to McClellan on the Peninsula, knowing no further enterprises will be attempted by the enemy in that quarter for some time to come.
July 17th.—The people are too jubilant, I fear, over our recent successes near the city. A great many skulkers from the army are seen daily in the streets, and it is said there are 3000 men here subject to conscript duty, who have not been enrolled. The business of purchasing substitutes is prevailing alarmingly.
July 18th.—To-day several ladies applied in person to the Secretary of War for passports to Norfolk and Baltimore, and he sent me written orders to grant them. They next applied to Gen. Winder to go with the flag of truce, exhibiting their passports. He repudiated them, however, and sent the ladies back to me, saying he wanted something with the Secretary’s signature, showing me to be authorized to sign them. I wrote such a note as I supposed he wanted, and the Secretary signed it as follows: