April 1st.—Clear and pleasant. Walked to the department.
We have vague and incoherent accounts from excited couriers of fighting, without result, in Dinwiddie County, near the South Side Railroad.
It is rumored that a battle will probably occur in that vicinity to-day.
I have leave of absence, to improve my health; and propose accompanying my daughter Anne, next week, to Mr. Hobson’s mansion in Goochland County. The Hobsons are opulent, and she will have an excellent asylum there, if the vicissitudes of the war do not spoil her calculations. I shall look for angling streams: and if successful, hope for both sport and better health.
The books at the conscript office show a frightful list of deserters or absentees without leave—60,000—all Virginians. Speculation!
Jno. M. Daniel, editor of the Examiner, is dead.
The following dispatch from Gen. Lee is just (10 A.M.) received:
“Headquarters, April 1st, 1865.
“His Excellency President Davis.
“Gen. Beauregard has been ordered to make arrangements to defend the railroad in North Carolina against Stoneman. Generals Echols and Martin are directed to co-operate, and obey his orders.
“R. E. Lee.”
A rumor (perhaps a 1st of April rumor) is current that a treaty has been signed between the Confederate States Government and Maximilian.
