ey; and if the local
troops are brought in, he does not know how to replace them. His army
diminishes, rather than increases, under the manipulations of the Bureau
of Conscription. It is a dark and dreary hour, when Lee is so
despondent!

Senator Henry writes that any delay in impressing the railroad from
Danville to Greensborough will be fatal.

CHAPTER XLVI.

Waning confidence in the President.--Blockade running.--From the South.--
Beauregard on Sherman.--The expeditions against Wilmington.--Return
of Mr. Pollard.--The Blairs in Richmond.--Arrest of Hon. H. S.
Foote.--Fall of Fort Fisher.--Views of Gen. Cobb.--Dismal.--
Casualties of the War.--Peace commissioners for Washington.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 1ST, 1865.--Snowed a few inches in depth during the
night--clear and cool morning. The new year begins with the new rumor
that Gen. Hood has turned upon Gen. Thomas and beaten him. This is
believed by many. Hood's army was _not_ destroyed, and he retreated from
before Nashville with some 20,000 men. Doubtless he lost many cannon;
but the Federal accounts of his disaster were probably much
exaggerated.

The cabinet still remains.

The President is considered really a man of ability, and eminently
qualified to preside over the Confederate States, if independence were
attained and we had peace. But he is probably not equal to the role he
is now called upon to play. He has not the broad intellect requisite for
the gigantic measures needed in such a crisis, nor the health and
physique for the labors devolving on him. Besides he is too much of a
politician still to discard his old prejudices, and persists in keeping
aloof from him, and from commanding positions, all the great statesmen
and patriots who contributed most in the work of preparing the minds of
the people for resistance to Northern domination. And the consequence is
that many of these influential men are laboring to break down his
administration, or else preparing the people for a return to the old
Union. The disaffection is intense and wide-spread among the politicians
of 1860, and consternation and despair are expanding among the people.
Nearly all desire to see Gen. Lee at the head of affairs; and the
President is resolved to yield the position to no man during his term of
service. Nor would Gen. Lee take it.

The proposition to organize an army of negroes gains friends; because
the owners of the slaves are no longer willing to fig