by John Beauchamp Jones
AUGUST 4TH.—Clear and hot.
All quiet atPetersburg. President Lincoln was at Fortress Monroe on Sunday last, after the explosion and its failure.
The Northern papers acknowledge that Grant sustained a terrible disaster atPetersburg, losing in killed, wounded, and missing 5000. They say the negro troops caused the failure, by running back and breaking the lines of the whites. The blacks were pushed forward in front, and suffered most.
From the same source we learn that our troops have penetratedPennsylvania, and laid the city ofChambersburg in ashes. This may be so, as they have burned some half dozen of our towns, and are now daily throwing shell intoCharleston,Atlanta, andPetersburg.
A letter to the Secretary from J. Thompson, in Canada (per Capt. Hines), was received to-day. He says the work will not probably begin before the middle of August. I know not what sort of work. But he says much caution is necessary. I suppose it to be the destruction of the Federal army depots, etc. in theUnited States.
Public meetings and the public press continue to denounce in unmeasured terms the high schedule of prices recently sanctioned by the Commissary and Quartermaster’s bureaus. And, although the schedule has been modified, much odium will attach to all concerned in it. A large farmer, at the rates fixed for his products, would realize, perhaps, $200,000 per annum.
