by John Beauchamp Jones
AUGUST 20TH.—Rained hard all night, and a good deal to-day. Between 10 and 11 P.M. last evening, as we were retiring, a musket was fired somewhere in the rear of the building, and fragments of lime and brick were heard rattling against the window-shutters. This morning I perceived where the ball struck, a few inches below the window-sill of the chamber on the second floor, where Custis and Tom were lying. Some one, I suppose, had heedlessly fired his gun, after returning from the fortifications.
Well, the papers to-day fall below the official announcement of the work of yesterday afternoon. Gen. Lee’s dispatch says we captured 2700 prisoners nearPetersburg on theWeldon Road. No other particulars are given, and the affair is still in mystery, for some purpose, perhaps.
It is rumored that Gen. Hampton captured 4000 men last night or this morning; but I doubt. Without that, the week’s work is good—Grant losing from 10,000 to 15,000 men. A few more weeks, at that rate, will consume his army, and then—peace?
Gen. Bragg complains, in a letter to the Secretary of War, that the orders of the department, and of the Adjutant-General, are not furnished him, which must diminish, if persisted in, his usefulness in the important position to which the President has called him. They are all inimical to Bragg—all but the President, who is bound in honor to sustain him.
The price of flour has fallen again; Lee’s victory frightening the dealers.
Robert Hill, commission merchant,Bank Street, gave me two pounds of coffee to-day when I told him of Lee’s dispatch. It was accepted, of course, and is worth some $20 per pound.
Guns are heard down the river again this evening, and all are wondering what Lee is doing now.
