I forgot to mention the fact that some weeks , ago I
received a work in manuscript from London, sent thither before the war, and
brought by a bearer of dispatches from our Commissioner, Hon. Ambrose Dudley
Mann, to whom I had written on the subject. I owe him a debt of gratitude for
this kindness. When peace is restored, I shall have in readiness some
contributions to the literature of the South, and my family, if I should not
survive, may derive pecuniary benefit from them. I look for a long war, unless a
Napoleon springs up among us, a thing not at all probable, for I believe there
are those who are constantly on the watch for such dangerous characters, and
they may possess the power to nip all embryo emperors in the bud.
Some of our functionaries are not justly entitled to the
great positions they occupy. They attained them by a species of snap-judgment,
from which there may be an appeal hereafter. It is very certain that many of
our best men have no adequate positions, and revolutions are mutable
things.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 105
