OCTOBER 4TH.—Sundry applications were made to-day to leave the country under flag of truce, provided I would not permit the names to be published. The reason for this request is that these persons have connections here who might be compromised. I refused compliance. In one or two instances they intimated that they would not have their names published for thousands of dollars. My response to this was such as to cause them to withdraw their applications.
A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary at the Confederate States Capital, By John Beauchamp Jones
OCTOBER 3D—The President not having taken any steps in the matter, I have no alternative but to execute the order of the Secretary.
OCTOBER. 2D.—A day or two ago Col. Bledsoe, who visits me now very seldom, sent an order by Mr. Brooks for me to furnish a list of the names of alien enemies for publication. This was complied with cheerfully; and these publications have produced some excitement in the community.
OCTOBER 1ST.—I find that only a few hundred alien enemies departed from the country under the President’s proclamation, allowing them forty days, from the 16th of August, to make their arrangements; but under the recent order of Mr. Benjamin, if I may judge from the daily applications, there will be a large emigration. The persons now going belong to a different class of people: half of them avowing themselves friendly to our cause, and desiring egress through our lines on the Potomac, or in the West, to avoid being published as alien enemies going under flag of truce via Norfolk and Fortress Monroe. Many of them declare a purpose to return.
SEPTEMBER 30TH.—A pretty general jail delivery is now taking place. Gen. Winder, acting I suppose, of course, under the instructions of the Secretary of War—and Mr. Benjamin is now Secretary indeed—is discharging from the prisons the disloyal prisoners sent hither during the last month by Gens. Johnston, Floyd, and Wise. Not only liberating them, but giving them transportation to their homes, mostly within the enemy’s lines. Surely if the enemy reciprocates such magnanimous courtesy, the war will be merely child’s play, and we shall be spared the usual horrors of civil war. We shall see how the Yankees will appreciate this kindness.
SEPTEMBER 29TH.—To-day Mr. Benjamin issued several pass-ports himself, and sent several others to me with peremptory orders for granting them.
SEPTEMBER 28TH.—I sent the paper containing my article to J. R. Davis, Esq., nephew of the President, avowing its authorship, and requesting him to ask the President’s attention to the subject.
SEPTEMBER 27TH.—To-day I prepared a leading editorial article for the Enquirer, taking ground directly opposite to that advocated by Mr. Benjamin. It was written with the law before me, which gave no warrant, as I could perceive, for the assumption of the Secretary.
SEPTEMBER 26TH.—Had a conversation with the Secretary to-day, on the policy of sending Union men out of the Confederacy. I told him we had 15,000 sick in the hospitals at Manassas, and this intelligence might embolden the enemy to advance, capture the hospitals, and make our sick men prisoners. He said such prisoners would be a burden to them, and a relief to us. I remarked that they would count as prisoners in making exchanges; and to abandon them in that manner, would have a discouraging effect on our troops. He said that sending unfriendly persons out of the country was in conformity with the spirit of the act of Congress, and recommended me to reperuse it and make explanations to the people, who were becoming clamorous for some restriction on the egress of spies.
SEPTEMBER 25TH.—Mr. Benjamin and Gen. Winder, after granting a special interview to Messrs. G. and R., have concluded to let them depart for Pennsylvania and New York Nor is this all. I have an order from Mr. Benjamin to give passports, until farther orders, to leave the country to all persons who avow them-selves alien enemies, whether in person or by letter, provided they take no wealth with them. This may be a fatal policy, or it may be a trap.
