of
Culpepper C. H., and it is supposed a battle is in progress to-day. No
danger of it.

NOVEMBER 12TH.--The heavy firing heard did no execution. Letters from
Gen. Lee indicate no battle, unless the enemy should make an egregious
blunder. He says he has _not half men enough_ to resist McClellan's
advance with his mighty army, and prefers manoeuvring to risking his
army. He says three-fourths of our cavalry horses are sick with
sore-tongue, and their hoofs are falling off, and the soldiers are not
fed and clad as they should be. He urges the sending of supplies to
Gordonsville.

And we have news of a simultaneous advance of Northern armies
everywhere; and everywhere we have the same story of deficiency of men
and provisions. North and south, east and west of us, the enemy is
reported advancing.

Soon we shall have every one blaming the Secretary of War for the
deficiency of men, and of quartermaster and commissary stores.

The Commissary-General, backed by the Secretary of War, made another
effort to-day to obtain the President's permission to trade cotton with
"Butler, the Beast." But the President and Gov. Pettus will manage that
_little_ matter without their assistance.

Major Ruffin's (Commissary's Bureau) statement of the alarming prospects
ahead, unless provisions be obtained outside of the Confederacy (for
cotton), was induced by reports from New Orleans. A man was in the
office to-day exhibiting Butler's passport, and making assurances that
all the Yankee generals are for sale--for cotton. Butler will make a
fortune--and so will some of our great men. Butler says the reason he
don't send troops into the interior is that he is afraid we will burn
the cotton.

It is reported that a fleet of the enemy's gun-boats are in the James
River.

NOVEMBER 13TH.--The President has rebuked the Secretary of War in round
terms for ordering Gen. Holmes to assume the command on _this_ side the
Mississippi. Perhaps Mr. Randolph has resolved to be really Secretary.
This is the first thing I have ever known him to do without previously
obtaining the President's sanction--and it must be confessed, it was a
matter of some gravity and importance. Of course it will be
countermanded. I have not been in the Secretary's office yet, to see if
there is an envelope on his table directed to the President marked
"_Immediate_." But he has not been to see the President--and that may be
significant, as this is the usual day.

A gentlem