150-Years-Ago -- NEWS FROM GEN. LEE AND ELSEWHERE

From the "Rebel War Clerk's Diary" of J. B. Jones in Richmond, Va.  

Gen. Robert E. Lee was carefully  watching the
Yankees troop  movements in late October, 1862,

         October 29th. [1862] —Gen. Lee writes (a few days since), from Brandy Station, that Meade seems determined to advance again; that troops are going up the Potomac to Washington, and that volunteers from New York have been ordered thither. He asks the Secretary to ascertain if there be really any Federal force in the York River; for if the report be correct of hostile troops being there, it may be the enemy’s intention to make another raid on the railroad. The general says we have troops enough in Southwestern Virginia; but they are not skillfully commanded.
          After all, I fear we shall not get the iron from the Aquia Creek Railroad. In the summer the government was too slow, and now it is probably too slow again, as the enemy are said to be landing there. It might have been removed long ago, if we had had a faster Secretary.
           Major S. Hart, San Antonio, Texas, writes that the 10,000 (the number altered again) superior rifles captured by the French off the Rio Grande last summer, were about to fall into the hands of United States cruisers; and he has sent for them, hoping the French will turn them over to us.
Gen. Winder writes the Secretary that the Commissary-General will let him have no meat for the 13,000 prisoners; and he will not be answerable for their safe keeping without it. The Quartermaster-General writes that the duty of providing for them is in dispute between the two bureaus, and he wants the Secretary to decide between them. If the Secretary should be very slow, the prisoners will suffer.
          Yesterday a set (six) of cups and saucers, white, and not china, sold at auction for $50.
Mr. Henry, Senator from Tennessee, writes the Secretary that if Ewell were sent into East Tennessee with a corps, and Gen. Johnston were to penetrate into Middle Tennessee, forming a junction north of Chattanooga, it would end the war in three months.
          October 30th.—We have nothing new to-day, except the continued bombardment of Charleston. That city has been besieged over one hundred days.
         October 31st.—Letters came to-day from the President (or rather copies in his own handwriting), relieving Lieut.-Gen. Hardee, in Mississippi, and assigning him to a command under Gen. Bragg. He also writes a friendly letter (from Meridian, Miss.) to Gen. Bragg, informing him that Gen. Hardee had been ordered to report to him without delay, and that two brigades might go with him, if needed. This indicates that the President means to sustain Bragg,
notwithstandingthe clamor against him; and that Bragg must have an immense army. Lieut.-Gen. Polk (whom the President will always sustain) is assigned to the Mississippi Department.
           The latest accounts from Chattanooga show that the enemy are stirring a little, and trying to flank Bragg’s left wing.
           The bombardment at Charleston is still without decisive result.