New York! Nor is this all. _I have an order from Mr.
Benjamin to give passports_, until further orders, _to leave the country
to all persons who avow themselves alien enemies, whether in person or
by letter_, provided they take no wealth with them. This may be a fatal
policy, or it may be a _trap_.

SEPTEMBER 26TH.--Had a conversation with the Secretary to-day, on the
policy of sending Union men out of the Confederacy. I told him we had
15,000 sick in the hospitals at Manassas, and this intelligence might
embolden the enemy to advance, capture the hospitals, and make our sick
men prisoners. He said such prisoners would be a burden to them, and a
relief to us. I remarked that they would count as prisoners in making
exchanges; and to abandon them in that manner, would have a discouraging
effect on our troops. He said that sending unfriendly persons out of the
country was in conformity with the spirit of the act of Congress, and
recommended me to reperuse it and make explanations to the people, who
were becoming clamorous for some restriction on the egress of spies.

SEPTEMBER 27TH.--To-day I prepared a leading editorial article for the
_Enquirer_, taking ground directly opposite to that advocated by Mr.
Benjamin. It was written with the law before me, which gave no warrant,
as I could perceive, for the assumption of the Secretary.

SEPTEMBER 28TH.--I sent the paper containing my article to J. R. Davis,
Esq., nephew of the President, avowing its authorship, and requesting
him to ask the President's attention to the subject.

SEPTEMBER 29TH.--To-day Mr. Benjamin issued several passports himself,
and sent several others to me with peremptory orders for granting them.

SEPTEMBER 30TH.--A pretty general jail delivery is now taking place.
Gen. Winder, acting I suppose, of course, under the instructions of the
Secretary of War--and Mr. Benjamin is now Secretary indeed--is
discharging from the prisons the disloyal prisoners sent hither during
the last month by Gens. Johnston, Floyd, and Wise. Not only liberating
them, but giving them transportation to their homes, mostly within the
enemy's lines. Surely if the enemy reciprocates such magnanimous
courtesy, the war will be merely child's play, and we shall be spared
the usual horrors of civil war. We shall see how the Yankees will
appreciate this kindness.

CHAPTER VII.

An order for the publication of the names of alien enemies.--Some
excitement.--Efforts to sec