No doubt he will advance as soon as the roads
become practicable. If Hooker has 150,000 men, and advances soon, Gen.
Lee cannot oppose his march; and in all probability we shall again hear
the din of war, from this city, in April and May. The fortifications are
strong, however, and 25,000 men may defend the city against
100,000--provided we have subsistence. The great fear is famine. But
hungry men will fight desperately. Let the besiegers beware of them!

We hope to have nearly 400,000 men in the field in May, and I doubt
whether the enemy will have over 500,000 veterans at the end of that
month. Their new men will not be in fighting condition before July. We
may cross the Potomac again.

MARCH 11TH.--Gen. Fitzhugh Lee has made a dash into Fairfax (near
Washington) a day or two ago, and captured the Federal Gen. Slaughter
and other officers, in their beds.

Last night one of the government warehouses in this city was burnt. It
is supposed to have been the work of an incendiary traitor; perhaps in
retaliation for the recent impressment of flour. Yesterday the lower
house of Congress passed a resolution restricting impressments. This has
a bad aspect.

The Bureau of Conscription, to-day, under the direction of Col. Lay,
decided that all clerks in the departments, appointed subsequent to the
eleventh of October last, are liable to be enrolled for service. Yet the
colonel himself has a clerk appointed in January last.

Gold sells at $5 in Confederate States notes for one; U. S. Treasury
notes are at a premium here of $2.50. Even the notes of our State banks
are at 60 per cent. premium over Confederate notes. This is bad for Mr.
Memminger. An abler financier would have worked out a different result.

All the patriotism is in the army; out of it the demon avarice rages
supreme. Every one seems mad with speculation; and the extortioners prey
upon every victim that falls within their power. Nearly all who sell are
extortioners. We have at the same time, and in the same community,
spectacles of the most exalted virtue and of the most degrading vice.

Col. Mattel, the former commandant of conscripts for North Carolina, who
was wounded at Kinston, and yet was superseded by Col. Lay's friend,
Col. August, is now to be restored, and Col. A. relieved. Upon this Col.
L. has fallen sick.

Mr. Duffield, whom Col. Lay and Mr. Jacques had appointed A. A. G. over
me, has not yet, for some cause, got his commission. The Secretary o