na, as of _vital importance_. He
thinks the enemy will cut the road between this and Weldon. He wants
Confederate notes made a legal tender; and the President says that, as
the courts cannot enforce payment in anything else, they are
substantially a legal tender already. And he suggests the withholding of
pay from officers during their absence from their regiments. A good
idea.

Everything indicates that Richmond will be assailed this fall, and that
operations in the field are not to be suspended in the winter.

Polk, Bragg, Cheatham, etc. are urging the President to make Col.
Preston Smith a brigadier-general. Unfortunately, Bragg's letter
mentioned the fact that Beauregard had given Smith command of a brigade
at Shiloh; and this attracting the eye of the President, he made a sharp
note of it with his pencil. "What authority had he for this?" he asked;
and Col. Smith will not be appointed.

OCTOBER 29TH.--There was a rumor yesterday that the enemy were marching
on Weldon; but we have no confirmation of it to-day.

Loring, after all, did not send his cavalry into Pennsylvania, I
presume, since nothing has been heard of it.

The _Charleston Mercury_ has some strictures on the President for not
having Breckinridge in Kentucky, and Price in Missouri, this fall. They
would doubtless have done good service to the cause. The President is
much absorbed in the matter of appointments.

Gen. Wise was again ordered down the Peninsula last Saturday; and again
ordered back when he got under way. They will not let him fight.

OCTOBER 30TH.--The Commissary-General is in hot water on account of some
of his contracts, and a board of inquiry is to sit on him.

The President has delayed the appointment of Gen. E. Johnson, and Gen.
Echols writes that several hundred of his men have deserted; that the
enemy, 10,000 or 15,000 strong, is pressing him, and he must fall back,
losing Charleston, Virginia, the salt works, and possibly the railroad.
He has less than 4000 men!

But we have good news from England--if it be true. The New York
_Express_ says Lord Lyons is instructed by England, and perhaps on the
part of France and other powers, to demand of the United States an
armistice; and in the event of its not being acceded to, the governments
will recognize our independence. One of the President's personal
attendants told me this news was regarded as authentic by our
government. I don't regard it so.

Yesterday the whole batch of "