the events will speak for
themselves--and that speedily.

JANUARY 29TH.--What we want is a military man capable of directing
operations in the field everywhere. I think Lee is such a man. But can
he, a modest man and a Christian, aspire to such a position? Would not
Mr. Benjamin throw his influence against such a suggestion? I trust the
President will see through the mist generated around him.

JANUARY 30TH.--Some of the mysterious letter-carriers, who have just
returned from their jaunt into Tennessee, are applying again for
passports to Baltimore, Washington, etc. I refuse them, though they are
recommended by Gen. Winder's men; but they will obtain what they want
from the Secretary himself, or his Assistant Secretary.

JANUARY 31ST.--What if these men (they have passports) should be going
to Washington to report the result of their reconnoissances in
Tennessee? The Tennessee River is high, and we have no casemated
batteries, or batteries of any sort, on it above Fort Henry.

CHAPTER XI.

Fall of Fort Henry.--Of Fort Donelson.--Lugubrious Inauguration of the
President in the Permanent Government.--Loss of Roanoke Island.

FEBRUARY 1ST.--We had a startling rumor yesterday that New Orleans had
been taken by the enemy, without firing a gun. I hastened to the
Secretary and asked him if it could be true. He had not heard of it, and
turned pale. But a moment after, recollecting the day on which it was
said the city had fallen, he seized a New Orleans paper of a subsequent
date, and said the news could not be true, since the paper made no
mention of it.

FEBRUARY 2D.--The rumor of yesterday originated in the assertion of a
Yankee paper that New Orleans _would_ be taken without firing a gun.
Some of our people fear it may be so, since Mr. Benjamin's friend, Gen.
Lovell, who came from New York since the battle of Manassas, is charged
with the defense of the city. He delivered lectures, it is said, last
summer on the defenses of New York--_in that city_. Have we not Southern
men of sufficient genius to make generals of, for the defense of the
South, without sending to New York for military commanders?

FEBRUARY 3D.--We have intelligence of the sailing of an expedition from
Cairo for the reduction of Fort Henry on the Tennessee River.

FEBRUARY 4TH.--Burnside has entered the Sound at Hatteras with his fleet
of gun-boats and transports. The work will soon begin.

FEBRUARY 5TH.--I am sorry to hear that Gen.