on concurs in this
opinion; and if this be the case, an explosion is imminent--for Judge
Campbell must have given instructions "by order of the Secretary,"
without the Secretary's knowledge or consent.

I advised the general to see the President and Secretary once a week,
and not rely upon verbal instructions received through a subordinate; he
said the advice was good, and he should follow it. But he is much
absorbed in his subterrene batteries.

MARCH 9TH.--We have no news to-day. But the next act of this terrible
drama is near at hand. The Northern papers have reports of the fall of
Vicksburg and Charleston. Unfounded. They also say 22,000 men have
deserted from the Army of the Potomac. This is probably true.

There is much denunciation of the recent seizure of flour; but this is
counteracted by an appalling intimation in one of the papers that unless
the army be subsisted, it will be withdrawn from the State, and Virginia
must fall into the hands of the enemy. The loss of Virginia might be the
loss of the Confederacy.

MARCH 10TH.--No war news of importance.

Just at this time there is a large number of persons passing to and from
the North. They are ostensibly blockade-runners, and they do succeed in
bringing from the enemy's country a large amount of goods, on which an
enormous profit is realized. The Assistant Secretary of War, his
son-in-law, Lt.-Col. Lay, the controlling man in the Bureau of
Conscription, and, indeed, many heads of bureaus, have received
commodities from Maryland, from friends running the blockade. Gen.
Winder himself, and his Provost Marshal Griswold (how much that looks
like a Yankee name!), and their police detectives, have reaped benefit
from the same source. But this intercourse with the enemy is fraught
with other matters. Communications are made by the disloyal to the
enemy, and our condition--bad enough, heaven knows!--is made known, and
hence the renewed efforts to subjugate us. This illicit intercourse,
inaugurated under the auspices of Mr. Benjamin, and continued by
subsequent Ministers of War, may be our ruin, if we are destined to
destruction. Already it has unquestionably cost us thousands of lives
and millions of dollars. I feel it a duty to make this record.

To-day we have a violent snow-storm--a providential armistice.

It has been ascertained that Hooker's army is still near the
Rappahannock, only some 20,000 or 30,000 having been sent to the
Peninsula and to Suffolk.