kner, whom he deems only _impatient_,
but says he must be subject to Bragg's orders, etc.

Gen. Bragg has applied for Gen. Forrest (who went some time since to
Mobile and tendered his resignation, in a pet with Gen. Bragg) to
command a cavalry force in North Mississippi and West Tennessee. In
short, the President is resolved to sustain Gen. Bragg at the head of
the army in Tennessee in spite of the tremendous prejudice against him
in and out of the army. And unless Gen. Bragg does something more for
the cause before Congress meets a month hence, we shall have more clamor
against the government than ever. But he has quashed the charges (of
Bragg) against Gen. Polk, and assigned him, without an investigation, to
an important command.

NOVEMBER 4TH.--Mr. M------, Major Ruffin's commissary agent, denies
selling _government_ beef to the butchers; of course it was his own. But
he has been ordered not to sell any more, while buying for the
government.

Mr. Rouss, of Winchester, merchant, has succeeded in getting some brown
cotton from the manufacturer, in Georgia, at cost, which he sells for
cost and carriage to refugees. My wife got 20 yards to-day for $20. It
is brown seven-eighth cotton, and brings in other stores $3 per yard.
This is a saving of $40. And I bought 24 pounds of bacon of Capt.
Warner, Commissary, at $1 per pound. The retail price is $2.50--and this
is a saving of $36. Without such "short cuts" as these, occasionally, it
would be impossible to maintain my family on the salaries my son Custis
and myself get from the government, $3000.

How often have I and thousands in our youth expressed the wish to have
lived during the first Revolution, or rather to have partaken of the
excitements of war! Such is the romance or "enchantment" which "distance
lends" "to the view." Now we see and feel the horrors of war, and we are
unanimous in the wish, if we survive to behold again the balmy sunshine
of peace, that neither we nor our posterity may ever more be spectators
of or participants in another war. And yet we know not how soon we might
plunge into it, if an adequate necessity should arise. Henceforth, in
all probability, we shall be a military people. But I shall seek the
peaceful haunts of quiet seclusion, for which I sigh with great
earnestness. O for a garden, a vine and fig-tree, and my library!

Among the strange events of this war, not the least is the position on
slavery (approving it) maintained by the Bi