sident, sends a copy of this scheme
to Lieut.-Gen. E. K. Smith, trans-Mississippi Department, and gives some
encouragement to the judge; abstaining, however, for the present, from
devoting any money to the project.

OCTOBER 17TH.--We hear to-day that a battle has taken place near
Manassas, and that Lee has taken some 9000 prisoners and many wagons. At
3 P.M. there was no official intelligence of this event, and it was not
generally credited.

Gen. Wise writes from Charleston, that it is understood by the French
and Spanish Consuls there that the city will not be bombarded.

In Eastern North Carolina the people have taken the oath of allegiance
to the United States, to be binding only so long as they are within the
military jurisdiction of the enemy; and they ask to be exempt from the
Confederate States tithe tax, for if they pay it, the enemy will despoil
them of all that remains.

OCTOBER 18TH.--No authentic information of a battle near Manassas has
been received at the War Department, although it is certain there has
been some heavy skirmishing on the Rappahannock. We have several
brigadier-generals wounded, and lost five guns; but, being reinforced,
continued the pursuit of the enemy, picking up many prisoners--they say
1500. The pursuit was retarded by the swelling of the streams.

A letter from Major-Gen. Jones, at Dublin Depot, Va., Oct. 14th, leads
me to think danger is apprehended in that quarter, the objective point
being the Salt Works; and it may be inferred, from the fact that
Burnside is still there, that Rosecrans is considered safe, by reason of
the heavy reinforcements sent from other quarters.

While I write, the government is having the tocsin sounded for
volunteers from the militia to go to the rescue of the Salt Works, which
is absurd, as the enemy will either have them before aid can be received
from Richmond, or else he will have been driven off by the local troops
near that vicinity.

Captain Warner took me in his buggy this morning to the military
prisons. He did not lead me into the crowded rooms above, where he said
I would be in danger of vermin, but exhibited his cooking apparatus,
etc.--which was ample and cleanly. Everywhere I saw the captives peeping
through the bars; they occupy quite a number of large
buildings--warehouses--and some exhibited vengeful countenances. They
have half a pound of beef per day, and plenty of good bread and
water--besides vegetables and other matters fur