February 20th.—Another morning of blue skies and glorious sunshine. Sherman is reported to be marching northward, and to have progressed one-third of the way between Columbia and Charlotte, N. C; where we had “millions of specie” a few days ago.
Some of the lady employees, sent by Mr. Memminger to Columbia last year, have returned to this city, having left and lost their beds, etc.
Grant’s campaign seems developed at last. Sherman and Thomas will concentrate on his left, massing 200,000 men between Lee and his supplies, effectually cutting his communications by flanking with superior numbers. It is probable Charleston, Wilmington, and Richmond will fall without a battle; for how can they be held when the enemy stops supplies? and how could the garrisons escape when once cut off from the interior?
And yet Congress has done nothing, and does nothing, but waste the precious time. I fear it is too late now! It is certainly too late to raise recruits for service in the campaign now in active operation, a fact which our politician leaders seem to be unconscious of. Even our furloughed troops cannot now rejoin their regiments from their distant homes.
Then, if Lee must evacuate Richmond, where can he go? No one knows!
My belief is that the only chance for Lee—and a desperate one —is to beat Grant immediately, before the grand junction can be formed.
Letters are beginning to come in from the South, advocating the abandonment of Richmond, and the march of Lee’s army into East Tennessee and Northern Georgia, and so on down to Montgomery, Ala., etc. etc.; concentrating in the Cotton States. What an ugly programme! How many would then follow the fortunes of this government? How many heads of bureaus, etc. would abandon it? How would it be possible for those with families on their hands to get transportation? A great many other questions might be asked, that few could answer at this time.
Charleston was evacuated on Tuesday last—nearly a week ago —so says the Examiner, and no one doubts it.
Mr. Hunter seems more depressed to-day than I have ever seen him. He walks with his head down, looking neither to the right nor the left.
I shall expect soon to hear of a battle. Beauregard must have nearly 50,000 men—such as they are, poor fellows! The rich have generally bribed themselves out of the service through the complicated machinery of the “Bureau of Conscription.”
Senator Brown, of Mississippi, I am sorry to see, often retards legislation by motions to postpone; and the Senate listens to him, not knowing what to do. Hours now are worth weeks hereafter.
The President has made Wm. M. Browne—one of his aids, an Englishman and a Northern newspaper reporter—a brigadier-general. This does not help the cause. Mr. B. knows no more about war than a cat; while many a scarred colonel, native-born, and participants in a hundred fights, sue in vain for promotion. Governor Clarke (Mississippi) telegraphs the President that nothing keeps the negroes from going to the enemy but the fear of being put in the Federal army; and that if it be attempted to put them in ours, all will run away, etc.
