ilies are shabby
enough in our raiment, and lean and lank in our persons. Nevertheless,
we have health and never-failing appetites. Roasted potatoes and salt
are eaten with a keen relish.

JANUARY 25TH.--The breach seems to widen between the President and
Congress, especially the Senate. A majority of the Committee on Military
Affairs have reported that Col. A. C. Myers (relieved last August) is
still the Quartermaster-General of the armies, and that Gen. Lawton, who
has been acting as Quartermaster-General since then, is not the duly
authorized Quartermaster-General: not having given bond, and his
appointment not having been consented to by the Senate. They say all the
hundreds of millions disbursed by his direction have been expended in
violation of law.

For the last few nights Col. Browne, one of the President's A. D. C.'s,
and an unnaturalized Englishman, has ordered a guard (department clerks)
to protect the President. Capt. Manico (an Englishman) ordered my son
Custis to go on guard to-night; but I obtained from the Secretary a
countermand of the order, and also an exemption from drills, etc. It
will not do for him to neglect his night-school, else we shall starve.

I noticed, to-day, eight slaughtered deer in one shop; and they are seen
hanging at the doors in every street. The price is $3 per pound. Wild
turkies, geese, ducks, partridges, etc. are also exposed for sale, at
enormous prices, and may mitigate the famine now upon us. The war has
caused an enormous increase of wild game. But ammunition is difficult to
be obtained. I see some perch, chubb, and other fish, but all are
selling at famine prices.

The weather is charming, which is something in the item of fuel. I sowed
a bed of early York cabbage, to-day, in a sheltered part of the garden,
and I planted twenty-four grains of early-sweet corn, some cabbage seed,
tomatoes, beets, and egg-plants in my little hot-bed--a flour barrel
sawed in two, which I can bring into the house when the weather is cold.
I pray God the season may continue mild, else there must be much
suffering. _And yet no beggars are seen in the streets._ What another
month will develop, I know not; the fortitude of the people, so far, is
wonderful.

Major-Gen. Sam. Jones, Dublin, Va., is at loggerheads with Lieut.-Gen.
Longstreet about some regiments the latter keeps in East Tennessee. Gen.
J. says Averill is preparing to make another raid on the Virginia and
Tennessee Railroad, the