ome
fear he will embarrass the general; others say he is near the field,
prepared to fly, if it be lost. In truth, if we were defeated, it might
be difficult for him to return to the city.

Gen. Breckenridge has defeated Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley.

Gen. Lee dispatches that he had no fighting Saturday and Sunday. To-day
Grant is retiring his right wing, but advancing his left east of
Spottsylvania Court House, where Lee's headquarters are still
established.

MAY 17TH.--Sunshine and showers.

The battle yesterday decided nothing, that I am aware of. We captured
1000 prisoners, stormed some of their intrenchments; losing altogether
probably as many as the enemy. But we drove them back to Bermuda
Hundred, behind their fortifications, and near their ships.

Gen. Johnston was attacked at Dalton by 80,000 men last week; accounts,
some five days old, say he repulsed the assaults of the enemy.

The Departmental Battalion is out yet; the city being still in danger.
The government is almost suspended in its functions. The Secretary of
the Treasury cannot get money from Columbia, S. C., whither he foolishly
sent the girls that sign the notes.

Some of the idle military officers, always found about the departments,
look grave, and do not hesitate to express some apprehension of the
success of Grant in forcing Lee back, and spreading over all Northern
and Northwestern Virginia. The Secretary of War is much secluded, and I
see by a correspondence between him and the Secretary of the Treasury,
relating to the _million and three-quarters_ in coin, belonging to the
New Orleans banks, that the Secretary of the Treasury can make no "valid
objection to the proposition of the Secretary of War." I do not
understand what disposition they propose to make of it.

A list is being prepared at the War Department (by Mr. Assistant
Secretary Campbell) for Congress to pass, authorizing the seizure of all
the railroads in the Confederacy. Also one establishing and reorganizing
the Bureau of Conscription.

If Butler remains between Richmond and Petersburg, and is reinforced,
and Grant is strong enough (two to Lee's one) to push on toward
Richmond, our perils and trials will be greater than ever.

Vice-President Stephens has not yet arrived. I do not understand that he
is ill.

MAY 18TH.--Showers and sunshine, the first preponderating.

Our killed and wounded in Beauregard's battle amount to some 1500. The
enemy lost 1000 prisoners, a