We are sending troops rapidly from Virginia to North Carolina.

The Northern papers say the following dispatch was sent to Washington by
our raiding Stuart: "Gen. Meigs will in future please furnish better
mules; those you have furnished recently are very inferior." He signed
his own name.

A large body of slaves passed through the city to-day, singing happily.
They had been working on the fortifications north of the city, and go to
work on them south of it. They have no faith in the efficacy of
Lincoln's Emancipation.

But it is different in Norfolk; 4000 enfranchised slaves marched in
procession through the town the other day in a sort of frantic jubilee.
They will bewail their error; and so will the Abolitionists. They will
consume the enemy's commissary stores; and if they be armed, we shall
get their arms.

Lee and Beauregard were telegraphed to-day in relation to the movement
on Wilmington; and the President had the cabinet with him many hours.

Gen. Rains is quite certain that the fall of New Orleans was the result
of treachery.

By the emancipation, Gen. Wise's county, Princess Ann, is excepted--and
so are Accomac and Northampton Counties; but I have no slaves. All I ask
of the invaders is to spare my timber, and I will take care of the
land--and I ask it, knowing the request will never be known by them
until the war is over.

JANUARY 8TH.--Gen. French writes that the enemy at Suffolk and Newbern
amounted to 45,000; and this force now threatens Weldon and Wilmington,
and we have not more than 14,000 to oppose them. With generalship that
should suffice.

All the Virginia conscripts are ordered to Gen. Wise, under Major-Gen.
Elzey. The conscripts from other States are to be taken to Gen. Lee. If
the winter should allow a continuance of active operations, and the
enemy should continue to press us, we might be driven nearly to the
wall. We must help ourselves all we can, and, besides, invoke the aid of
Almighty God!

We have nothing fresh from Bragg--nothing from Vicksburg--and that is
_bad news_.

I like Gen. Rains. He comes in and sits with me every day. Col. Lay is
the active business man of the bureau. The general is engaged in some
experiments to increase the efficiency of small arms.

He is very affable and communicative. He says he never witnessed more
sanguinary fighting than at the battle of the Seven Pines, where his
brigade retrieved the fortunes of the day; for at one time it was lost.
He