rnment will rule.

JUNE 13TH.--Only one of the Williamsburg volunteers came into the
department proper; and he will make his way, for he is a flatterer. He
told me he had read my "Wild Western Scenes" twice, and never was so
much entertained by any other book. He went to work with hearty
good-will.

JUNE 14TH.--Col. Bledsoe has given up writing almost entirely, but he
groans as much as ever. He is like a fish out of water, and unfit for
office.

JUNE 15TH.--Another clerk has been appointed; a sedate one, by the name
of Shepherd, and a former pupil of the colonel's.

I received several hints that the Chief of the Bureau was not at all a
favorite with the Secretary, who considered him utterly unfit for the
position; and that it could hardly be _good policy_ for me to be on
terms of such intimacy with him. Policy! A word I never appreciated, a
thing I never knew. All I know is that Col. Bledsoe has been appointed
by the President to fill an important position; and the same power
appoints the secretaries, and can unmake them. Under these circumstances
I find him permitted to sit for hours and days in the department with no
one to inform him of the condition of the business or to facilitate him
in the performance of his official duties. Not for any partiality in his
behalf, or prejudice against the Secretary, I step forward and endeavor
to discharge my own duty. I strive to serve the cause, whatsoever may be
the consequences to my personal interests.

JUNE 16TH.--To-day, receiving dispatches from General Floyd, in Western
Virginia, that ten thousand Yankees were advancing through Fayette
County, and might intercept railroad communication between Richmond and
Chattanooga--the Secretary got me to send a telegraphic dispatch to his
family to repair hither without delay, for _military_ reasons. About
this time the Secretary's health gave way again, and Major Tyler had
another fit of indisposition totally disqualifying him for business.
Hence I have nearly all the correspondence of the department on my
hands, since Col. Bledsoe has ceased to write.

JUNE 17TH.--To-day there was a rumor in the streets that Harper's Ferry
had been evacuated by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, and, for the first time,
I heard murmurs against the government. So far, perhaps, no Executive
had ever such cordial and unanimous support of the people as President
Davis. I knew the motive of the evacuation, and prepared a short
editorial for one of the paper