g.

Just as I apprehended! The brigade ordered away from Hanover to
Gordonsville, upon a wild-goose chase, had not been gone many hours
before some 1200 of the enemy's cavalry appeared there, and burnt the
bridges which the brigade had been guarding! This is sottishness, rather
than generalship, in our local commanders.

A regiment was sent up when firing was heard (the annihilation of our
weak guard left at the bridges) and arrived just two hours too late. The
enemy rode back, with a hundred mules they had captured, getting under
cover of their gun-boats.

To-day, it is said, Gen. Elzey is relieved, and Gen. Ransom, of North
Carolina, put in command; also, that Custis Lee (son of Gen. R. E. Lee)
has superseded Gen. Winder. I hope this has been done. Young Lee has
certainly been commissioned a brigadier-general. His brother, Brig.-Gen.
W. H. F. Lee, wounded in a late cavalry fight, was taken yesterday by
the enemy at Hanover Court House.

Gen. Whiting's letter about the "Arabian" came back from the President,
to-day, indorsed that, as Congress did not prohibit private
blockade-running, he wouldn't interfere. So, this is to be the settled
policy of the government.

This morning the President sent a letter to the Secretary of War,
requesting him to direct all mounted officers--some fifty A. A. G.'s and
A. D.'s--to report to him for duty around the city. Good! These
gentlemen ought to be in the saddle instead of being sheltered from
danger in the bureaus.

3 O'CLOCK P.M.--Three proclamations have just been issued! One (a joint
one) from the President and the Governor, calling upon everybody to
organize themselves into companies, battalions, and regiments, when they
will be armed. They say "no time is to be lost, the danger is great."
The Mayor, in his document, warns the people in time to avoid the fate
of New Orleans. He says the enemy is advancing on the city, and may
assail it before Monday morning. This is Saturday. The third
proclamation is by E. B. Robinson, one of my printers, twenty years ago,
at Washington. He calls upon all natives of Maryland and the District of
Columbia to report to him, and he will lead them against the enemy, and
redeem them from the imputation of skulking or disloyalty cast upon poor
refugees by the flint-hearted Shylocks of Richmond, who have extorted
all their money from them.

Besides these inflammatory documents, the militia colonels have out
notices for all men under forty-five