g the last week, attracted my attention to-day. And when he
retired, Colonel B. informed me it was Bishop Polk, a classmate of his
and the President's at West Point. He had just been appointed a
_major_-general, and assigned to duty in the West, where he would rank
Gen. Pillow, who was exceedingly unpopular in Adjutant-Gen. Cooper's
office. I presume this arose solely from mistrust of his military
abilities; for he had certainly manifested much enthusiasm in the cause,
and was constantly urging the propriety of aggressive movements with his
command. All his purposed advances were countermanded. The policy of the
government is to be economical of the men. We have but a limited, the
enemy an inexhaustible number.

JUNE 22D.--The Convention has appointed ten additional members to the
Provisional Congress--President Tyler among them. It will be observed
that my Diary goes on, including every day. Fighting for our homes and
holy altars, there is no intermission on Sunday. It is true, Mr.
Memminger came in the other day with a proposition to cease from labor
on Sunday, but our Secretary made war on it. The President, however,
goes to church very regularly--St. Paul's.

On last Sunday the President surprised me. It was before church time,
and I was working alone. No one else was in the large room, and the
Secretary himself had gone home, quite ill. I thought I heard some one
approaching lightly from behind, but wrote on without looking up; even
when he had been standing some time at the back of my chair. At length I
turned my head, and beheld the President not three feet from me. He
smiled, and said he was looking for a certain letter referred by him to
the Secretary. I asked the name of the writer, which he told me. I said
I had a distinct recollection of it, and had taken it into the Secretary
with other papers that morning. But the Secretary was gone. We then
proceeded into the Secretary's office in search of it. The Secretary's
habit was to take the papers from his table, and after marking on them
with his pencil the disposition he wished made of them, he threw them
helter-skelter into a large arm-chair. This chair now contained half a
bushel; and the President and I set to work in quest of the letter. We
removed them one by one; and as we progressed, he said with an impatient
smile, "it is always sure to be the last one." And so it was. Having
found it, he departed immediately; and soon after I saw him on his way
to chur