h
is probable, the army will soon learn what an easy conquest awaits them.

Mr. C. C. Thayer, clerk in the Treasury Department, leaves on the 9th,
with $15,000,000 for the trans-Mississippi Department; another clerk has
already gone with $10,000,000.

After all, I am inclined to think our papers have been lying about the
barbarous conduct of the enemy. A letter was received to-day from C. N.
Hubbard, a respectable farmer of James City County, stating that when
Gen. Keyes came up the Peninsula about the 1st of July, he sent guards
for the protection of the property of the people living along the line
of march; and they remained, faithfully performing that duty, until the
army retired. Mr. H. complains that these guards were made prisoners by
our troops, and, if exchanges be demanded for them, he fears the next
time the hostile army approaches Richmond, their request for a guard
will be refused. What answer the Secretary will make to this, I have no
means of conjecturing; but Mr. Hubbard recommends him to come to some
understanding with the enemy for the mutual protection of the persons
and property of non-combating civilians; and he desires an answer
directed to the care of Col. Shingler, who, indeed, captured the guard.
The Secretary consented to the exchange.

SEPTEMBER 6TH.--Northern papers received yesterday evening contain a
letter from Mr. Lincoln to the Illinois Convention of Republicans, in
which I am told (I have not seen it yet) he says if the Southern people
will first lay down their arms, he will then listen to what they may
have to say. Evidently he has been reading of the submission of Jack
Cade's followers, who were required to signify their submission with
ropes about their necks.

This morning I saw dispatches from Atlanta, Ga., stating that in one of
the northern counties the deserters and tories had defeated the Home
Guard which attempted to arrest them. In Tennessee, North Carolina,
Mississippi, and Georgia, we have accounts of much and growing
defection, and the embodying of large numbers of deserters. Indeed, all
our armies seem to be melting away by desertion faster than they are
enlarged by conscription. They will return when there is fighting to do!

A letter from Col. Lay, dated North Carolina, to the Chief of the Bureau
of Conscription, recommends the promotion of a lieutenant to a
captaincy. The colonel is _great_ in operations of this nature; and Col.
Preston is sufficiently good natured