contracts in
Congress.--Efforts to escape conscription.--Ships coming in freely.--
Sneers at negro troops.--Hopes of French intervention.--Gen. Rains
blows himself up.--Davis would be the last to give up.--Gov. Vance
protests against Col. August's appointment as commandant of
conscripts.--Financial difficulties in the United States.

JANUARY 1ST, 1863.--This first day of the year dawned in gloom, but the
sun, like the sun of Austerlitz, soon beamed forth in great splendor
upon a people radiant with smiles and exalted to the empyrean.

A letter from Gen. H. Marshall informed the government that Gen. Floyd
had seized slaves in Kentucky and refused to restore them to their
owners, and that if the government did not promptly redress the wrong,
the Kentuckians would at once "take the law into their own hands."

We had a rumor (not yet contradicted) that the enemy, or traitors, had
burned the railroad bridge between Bristol and Knoxville, cutting our
communication with the West.

Then it was said (and it was true) that Gen. Lee had sent his artillery
back some 30 miles this side of the Rappahannock, preparatory to going
into winter quarters. But this was no occasion for gloom. Lee always
knows what is best to be done.

Next there was a rumor (not yet confirmed, but credited) that Stuart had
made another of his wonderful reconnoissances, capturing prisoners and
destroying much of the enemy's stores beyond the Rappahannock.

Then came a dispatch from Bragg which put us almost "beside" ourselves
with joy, and caused even enemies to pause and shake hands in the
street. Yesterday he attacked Rosecrans's army near Murfreesborough, and
gained a great victory. He says he drove him from all his positions,
except on the extreme left, and after ten hours' fighting, occupied the
whole of the field except (those exceptions!) the point named. We had,
as trophies, thirty-one guns, two generals, 4000 prisoners, and 200
wagons. This is a _Western_ dispatch, it is true, but it has Bragg's
name to it, and he does not willingly exaggerate. Although I, for one,
shall await the next dispatches with anxiety, there can be no question
about the victory on the last day of the bloody year 1862. Bragg says
the loss was heavy on both sides.

I noticed that one of the brass pieces sent down by Lee to go to North
Carolina had been struck by a ball just over the muzzle, and left a
glancing mark toward the touch-hole. That