CHAPTER XXXV.

Gen. Lovell applies for a command.--Auspicious opening of 1864.--Mr.
Wright's resolutions.--Rumored approach of Gen. Butler.--Letter from
Gov. Brown.--Letter from Gen. Lee.--Dispatches from Gen.
Beauregard.--President Davis's negroes.--Controversy between Gen.
Winder and Mr. Ould.--Robbery of Mr. Lewis Hayman.--Promotion of Gen.
Bragg, and the _Examiner_ thereon.--Scarcity of provisions in the
army.--Congress and the President.

FEBRUARY 1ST.--Hazy, misty weather. Gen. Lovell (who lost New Orleans)
has applied for a command in the West, and Gen. Johnston approves it
strongly. He designs dividing his army into three corps, giving one (3d
division) to Gen. Hardee; one (2d division) to Gen. Hindman; and one
(1st division) to Lovell. But the Secretary of War (wide awake) indorses
a disapproval, saying, in his opinion, it would be injudicious to place
a corps under the command of Gen. Lovell, and it would not give
confidence to the army. This being sent to the President, came back
indorsed, "opinion concurred in.--J. D."

Gen. Pillow has applied for the command of two brigades for operations
between Gen. Johnston's and Gen. Polk's armies, protecting the flanks of
both, and guarding the coal mines, iron works, etc. in Middle Alabama.
This is strongly approved by Generals Johnston, Polk, Gov. Watts & Co.
But the President has not yet decided the matter.

The Commissary-General is appointing many ladies to clerkships. Old men,
disabled soldiers, and ladies are to be relied on for clerical duty,
nearly all others to take the field. But every ingenuity is resorted to
by those having in substitutes to evade military service.

There is a great pressure of foreigners (mostly Irish) for passes to
leave the country.

FEBRUARY 2D.--So lax has become Gen. Winder's rule, or deficient, or
worse, the vigilance of his detectives,--the rogues and
cut-throats,--one of them keeps a mistress in a house the rent of which
is more than his salary, that five Jews, the other day, cleared out in a
schooner laden with tobacco, professedly for Petersburg, but sailed
directly to the enemy. They had with them some $10,000 in gold; and as
they absconded to avoid military service in the Confederate States, no
doubt they imparted all the information they could to the enemy.

Mr. Benjamin, Secretary of State, asked the Secretary of War to-day to
make such arrangements as would supply the State Departmen