he convert the money into
European funds? If so, he should not let it be known, else it will
engender the terrible idea that our affairs are in a desperate
condition. The operations of the next thirty days may be decisive of our
fate. Hundreds of thousands of Southern men have yet to die before
subjugation can be effected; and quite that number of invaders must fall
to accomplish it!

OCTOBER 28TH.--No news from the army. We have some 13,000 prisoners
here, hungry; for there is not sufficient meat for them.

Mr. Memminger, Secretary of the Treasury, is said to be transporting his
private fortune (very large) to Europe.

OCTOBER 29TH.--Gen. Lee writes (a few days since), from Brandy Station,
that Meade seems determined to advance again; that troops are going up
the Potomac to Washington, and that volunteers from New York have been
ordered thither. He asks the Secretary to ascertain if there be really
any Federal force in the York River; for if the report be correct of
hostile troops being there, it may be the enemy's intention to make
another raid on the railroad. The general says we have troops enough in
Southwestern Virginia; but they are not skillfully commanded.

After all, I fear we shall not get the iron from the Aquia Creek
Railroad. In the summer the government was too slow, and now it is
probably too slow again, as the enemy are said to be landing there. It
might have been removed long ago, if we had had a faster Secretary.

Major S. Hart, San Antonio, Texas, writes that the 10,000 (the number
altered again) superior rifles captured by the French off the Rio
Grande last summer, were about to fall into the hands of United States
cruisers; and he has sent for them, hoping the French will turn them
over to us.

Gen. Winder writes the Secretary that the Commissary-General will let
him have no meat for the 13,000 prisoners; and he will not be answerable
for their safe keeping without it. The Quartermaster-General writes that
the duty of providing for them is in dispute between the two bureaus,
and he wants the Secretary to decide between them. If the Secretary
should be very _slow_, the prisoners will suffer.

Yesterday a set (six) of cups and saucers, white, and not china, sold at
auction for $50.

Mr. Henry, Senator from Tennessee, writes the Secretary that if Ewell
were sent into East Tennessee with a corps, and Gen. Johnston were to
penetrate into Middle Tennessee, forming a junction north of
Chattanoo