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“This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected….”

Ranking

#8 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

Audio Version

On This Date

HD Daily Report, August 23, 1864

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: Lincoln in 1864

: Memo (front)

: Memo (reverse)

: Lincoln Cabinet, c. 1864

: George McClellan

: Lincoln & McClellan in 1862

How Historians Interpret

“Lincoln’s language revealed not merely his pessimism about his own fortunes but his realistic understanding of the forces that opposed his reelection. He did not say that if he was defeated the country would fall into the hands of Copperheads who would consent to the division of the Union and the recognition of the Confederacy. He did not think the Democrats were disloyal. There had been ‘much impugning of motives, and much heated controversy as to the proper means and best mode of advancing the Union cause,’ he conceded, but he derived great satisfaction in recording that ‘a great majority of the opposing party’ was as firmly committed as the Republicans to maintaining the integrity of the Union, and he noted with pride that ‘no candidate for higher office whatever, high or low, has ventured to seek votes on the avowal that he was for giving up the Union.’ Nor did he have doubts about the loyalty of George B. McClellan, whose nomination by the Democrats he anticipated. But he did think that if the Democrats elected McClellan the party platform would force the new administration to seek an armistice, which virtually assured Confederate independence.”

—David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 529

“Pressure was building on Lincoln to drop emancipation as a condition for peace and to negotiate an end to the war. The situation came to a head August 22, when the Republican National Committee met in New York. After the meeting, Raymond delivered the grim news to the president: If the election were held that day, he would lose the key states of New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. Indeed, he might lose every state. Raymond blamed Lincoln’s problems on military losses and the general belief ‘that we are not to have peace in any event under this Administration until Slavery is abandoned.’ Many Americans, he said, thought emancipation was all that was standing between them and peace. Raymond suggested that Lincoln show the country that Davis, not he, was the problem. Offer Davis peace ‘on the sole condition of acknowledging the supremacy of the constitution,’ he advised Lincoln. Davis would turn it down, insist on independence, and the country would see that he was the true obstructionist. Lincoln thought about the strategy and then adopted it. On August 24 he wrote a memo authorizing Raymond to meet with Davis and propose an immediate cease-fire based on the restoration of the Union only. All other questions, including emancipation, would be dealt with later. The problem was that this would send a terrible message to freedmen, especially those who were serving in the Union army. Almost exactly a year earlier, Lincoln had written a public letter in which he acknowledged the crucial role black soldiers were playing in the war. ‘If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive—even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept,’ he told his critics in August 1863. Three days before Raymond pitched his plan, Lincoln had sworn again he would not abandon the freedmen to sue for peace, saying that he would be ‘damned in time & in eternity’ if he did. Raymond’s plan was the primrose path. Confronted with Raymond’s message of political doom, Lincoln had to make the hardest decision of his political career: abandon emancipation and his own moral code or lose in November. Lincoln decided to risk the latter. In the words of his hero, Henry Clay, he would ‘rather be right than president.’ Within twenty-four hours of drafting the memo authorizing Raymond to meet with Davis, Lincoln changed his mind and rejected the idea. Sending a commission to Richmond would be worse than losing the Presidential contest—it would be ignominiously surrendering it in advance,’ he told Raymond. Lincoln now prepared to lose. He wrote a memo to his cabinet, sealed it in an envelope, and asked each of his cabinet members to sign the back of the envelope, contents unseen.”

–Jennifer L. Weber, “Lincoln’s Critics: The Copperheads,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 32.1 (2011)

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Executive Mansion

Washington, Aug. 23, 1864.

This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards.

LINCOLN

Letter to Norman Judd (October 20, 1858)

“I now have a high degree of confidence….”

In Honest Abe

Ranking

#9 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

Context. Toward the end of the 1858 campaign, Abraham Lincoln worried about election fraud. In this letter, he addressed the issue by warning Republican state party chairman Norman B. Judd that Democrats were sending Irish immigrant voters across central Illinois to cast illegal ballots. Lincoln offered what he called “a bare suggestion,” namely that Republicans might themselves consider employing a “detective” who could control the Irish voters –though by what means he did not specify. (By Matthew Pinsker)

On That Date

HD Daily Report, October 20, 1858

Audio Version

Image Gallery

: Lincoln in 1858

: Norman Judd

: John Courts Bagby

: Central Illinois

Close Readings

Matthew Pinsker: Understanding Lincoln: Letter to Judd (1858) from The Gilder Lehrman Institute on Vimeo.

Custom Map

Chicago Press and Tribune, “The Celtic Invasion,” October 16, 1858

Other Primary Sources

Chicago Daily Tribune, Article about Pinkerton & Co., September 5, 1856

Chicago Press and Tribune, “Abraham Lincoln,” Novemeber 10, 1858

How Historians Interpret

“Like many of his party colleagues, Lincoln anticipated electoral fraud. To Norman B. Judd he expressed ‘a high degree of confidence that we shall succeed, if we are not over-run with fraudulent votes to a greater extent than usual.’ In Naples he had noticed several Irishmen dressed as railroad workers carrying carpetbags; he reported that hundreds of others were rumored to be leaving districts where their votes were superfluous in order to settle briefly in hotly contested counties. To thwart this so-called ‘colonization’ of voters, Lincoln offered Judd ‘a bare suggestion,’ namely, that where ‘there is a known body of these voters, could not a true man, of the ‘detective’ class, be introduced among them in disguise, who could, at the nick of time, control their votes? Think this over. It would be a great thing, when this trick is attempted upon us, to have the saddle come up on the other horse.’ It is not entirely clear what Lincoln intended; the ‘true man of the detective class’ was perhaps a bag man to distribute bribes.’

—Michael Burlingame, A Life, vol. 1 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1493

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Hon. N. B. Judd Rushville, Oct. 20, 1858

My dear Sir: I now have a high degree of confidence that we shall succeed, if we are not over-run with fraudulent votes to a greater extent than usual. On alighting from the cars and walking three squares at Naples on Monday, I met about fifteen Celtic gentlemen, with black carpet-sacks in their hands.

I learned that they had crossed over from the Rail-road in Brown county, but where they were going no one could tell. They dropped in about the doggeries, and were still hanging about when I left. At Brown County yesterday I was told that about four hundred of the same sort were to be brought into Schuyler, before the election, to work on some new Railroad; but on reaching here I find Bagby thinks that is not so.

What I most dread is that they will introduce into the doubtful districts numbers of men who are legal voters in all respects except residence and who will swear to residence and thus put it beyond our power to exclude them. They can & I fear will swear falsely on that point, because they know it is next to impossible to convict them of Perjury upon it.

Now the great remaining part of the campaign, is finding a way to head this thing off. Can it be done at all?

I have a bare suggestion. When there is a known body of these voters, could not a true man, of the “detective” class, be introduced among them in disguise, who could, at the nick of time, control their votes? Think this over. It would be a great thing, when this trick is attempted upon us, to have the saddle come up on the other horse.

I have talked, more fully than I can write, to Mr. Scripps, and he will talk to you.

If we can head off the fraudulent votes we shall carry the day. Yours as ever A. LINCOLN

Letter to Joseph Hooker (January 26, 1863)

“I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac….”

Ranking

#13 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

Audio Version

On This Date

HD Daily Report, January 26, 1863

The Lincoln Log, January 26, 1863

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: Letter to Joseph Hooker

: Joseph Hooker

: Lincoln in 1862

: Hooker and staff

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Noah Brooks quoting Joseph Hooker about Jan. 26 letter

Other Primary Sources

Daily Evening Bulletin, “The Rising Man, Hooker – His Testimony as to the Battle of Fredericksburg,” January 26, 1863

The New York Herald, “The New Commander of the Army of the Potomac,” January 27, 1863

Abraham Lincoln to Joseph Hooker, June 10, 1863

How Historians Interpret

“In naming Hooker, Lincoln read aloud to that general one of his most eloquent letters, a document illustrative of his deep paternal streak. Like a wise, benevolent father, he praised Hooker while gently chastising him for insubordination toward superior officers … Hooker thought it was ‘just such a letter as a father might write to a son. It is a beautiful letter, and although I think he was harder on me than I deserved, I will say that I love the man who wrote it.’ (As John G. Nicolay remarked, ‘it would be difficult to find a severer piece of friendly criticism.’) Boastfully, Hooker told some fellow officers: ‘After I have been in Richmond I shall have the letter published in the newspapers. It will be amusing.”

— Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript By Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 2, Chapter 30 (PDF), pp. 3282-3284

“Rather uncertainly Lincoln turned to Joseph Hooker. The general had some decided negatives. He was known to be a hard drinker. He had been outspoken almost to the point of insubordination in his criticisms of Burnside’s incompetence, and he let it be known that he viewed the President and the government at Washington as ‘imbecile and played out.’ ‘Nothing would go right,’ he told a newspaper reporter, ‘until we had a dictator, and the sooner the better.’ But the handsome, florid-faced general had performed valiantly in nearly all the major engagements of the Peninsula campaign and at Antietam, where he had been wounded, and his aggressive spirit earned him the sobriquet ‘Fighting Joe.’ Lincoln decided to take a chance on him. Calling Hooker to the White House, he gave the general a carefully composed private letter, which commended his bravery, his military skill, and his confidence in himself. At the same time, he told Hooker, ‘there are some things in regard to which, I am not quite satisfied with you.’ He lamented Hooker’s efforts to undermine confidence in Burnside and mentioned his ‘recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a Dictator.’ … The appointment of Hooker, which was generally well received in the North, relieved some of the immediate pressure on the President. Everybody understood that the new commander would require some time to reorganize the Army of the Potomac and to raise the spirits of the demoralized soldiers. The President could, for the moment, turn his attention to other problems.”

— David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 411-412

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Executive Mansion

Washington, January 26, 1863.

Major General Hooker

General:

I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what appear to me to be sufficient reasons. And yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which, I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and a skilful soldier, which, of course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable, if not an indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm. But I think that during Gen. Burnside’s command of the Army, you have taken counsel of your ambition, and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country, and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard, in such way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a Dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes, can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The government will support you to the utmost of it’s ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the Army, of criticising their Commander, and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can, to put it down. Neither you, nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army, while such a spirit prevails in it.

And now, beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy, and sleepless vigilance, go forward, and give us victories.

Yours very truly

A. LINCOLN

Letter to Richard Yates (August 18, 1854)

HD Daily Report, August 18, 1854

In Honest Abe

Ranking

#15 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

Context. In the summer of 1854, Abraham Lincoln was a 45-year-old attorney and former one-term US congressman living in Springfield, Illinois. However, in this letter to Richard Yates, his local congressman and fellow Whig, Lincoln acted and sounded more like a political party boss than anything else. He used this letter to organize Yates’s announcement for his campaign for reelection to Congress. Lincoln wanted to avoid holding a convention to secure Yates’s renomination because the partisan situation that summer was in turmoil, not only over the controversy surrounding the Kansas-Nebraska Act, but also because of the rise of anti-immigrant nativism. Lincoln made reference to coordinating with those so-called “Know Nothings,” in this letter by referring to their local leader, Benjamin S. Edwards, whom Lincoln deemed “entirely satisfied.” The newspapers did announce Yates’s availability the next week, though without mentioning the Whig Party label. He was ultimately defeated in the November 1854 midterm elections. (By Matthew Pinsker)

“I am disappointed….”

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On This Date

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: Lincoln in 1854

: Richard Yates

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Matthew Pinsker: Understanding Lincoln: Letter to Richard Yates (1854) from The Gilder Lehrman Institute on Vimeo.

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Abraham Lincoln to Richard J. Oglesby, Springfield, September 8, 1854

Other Primary Sources

Abraham Lincoln to Richard Yates, Naples, October 30, 1854

Abraham Lincoln to Richard Yates, Naples, October 31, 1854

Richard Yates, “Speech of Richard Yates,” delivered in the Wigwam at the Springfield Jubilee, November 20, 1860, quoted in the Illinois State Journal, November 22, 1860, 3.

How Historians Interpret

“Feeling again the joy of political combat, he devoted all his time to the anti-Nebraska cause, except for his necessary commitments to court cases. He became, in effect, Yates’s campaign manager, spending hours conferring with the Whig candidate and advising him on tactics. Learning that English settlers in Morgan County were disturbed by reports that Yates was a Know-Nothing, he drafted a letter denying the charge, which could be distributed ‘at each precinct where any considerable number of the foreign citizens, german as well as english—vote.’ When he heard that Democrats were whispering that Yates, though professing to be a temperate man, was a secret drinker, he recognized that the rumor might cost the Whigs the large prohibitionist vote and sought to kill the allegation. ‘I have never seen him drink liquor, not act, or speak, as if he had been drinking, nor smelled it on his breath,’ he wrote. But then–almost as if he realized that the future would show that Yates did indulge in liquor, to the point of being intoxicated when he was inaugurated as governor of Illinois in 1861—Lincoln carefully explained his own position to a friend: ‘Other things being equal, I would much prefer a temperate man, to an intemperate one; still I do not make my vote depend absolutely upon the question of whether a candidate does or does not taste liquor.'”

—David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 171

Further Reading

For educators:

Handout –Lincoln in 1854 (Pinsker)

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Hon. R. Yates, Springfield,
Jacksonville, Ill.

August 18, 1854.

My dear Sir:

I am disappointed at not having seen or heard from you since I met you more than a week ago at the railroad depot here. I wish to have the matter we spoke of settled and working to its consummation. I understand that our friend B. S. Edwards is entirely satisfied now, and when I can assure myself of this perfectly I would like, by your leave, to get an additional paragraph into the Journal, about as follows:

“To-day we place the name of Hon. Richard Yates at the head of our columns for reelection as the Whig candidate for this congressional district. We do this without consultation with him and subject to the decision of a Whig convention, should the holding of one be deemed necessary; hoping, however, there may be unanimous acquiescence without a convention.”

May I do this? Answer by return mail.

Yours, as ever,

A. LINCOLN.

Letter to Ulysses S Grant (January 19, 1865)

“Please read and answer this letter as though I was not President, but only a friend….”

Ranking

#24 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

Audio Version

On This Date

HD Daily Report, January 19, 1865

Image Gallery

: Lincoln in 1865

: Letter to Ulysses S. Grant

: Ulysses S. Grant

: Robert Todd Lincoln

: Mary Todd Lincoln


Close Readings

Custom Map

Ulysses S. Grant to Abraham Lincoln, January 21, 1865

Other Primary Sources

Keckley recollection of Mr. & Mrs. Lincoln discussion, 1868

Daily National Intelligencer, February 14, 1865

Robert Todd Lincoln to Abraham Lincoln, April 3, 1865

How Historians Interpret

“Of course Tad was far too young to serve, but twenty-one-year-old Robert was not. Robert was eager to drop out of Harvard and enlist, but his mother adamantly objected. ‘We have lost one son, and his loss is as much as I can bear, without being called upon to make another sacrifice,’ she insisted to the president. Lincoln replied: ‘But many a poor mother has given up all her sons, and our son is not more dear to us than the sons of other people are to their mothers.’ … In January 1865, when the First Lady finally yielded, Lincoln asked Grant to place Robert on his staff:”

— Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript By Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 2, Chapter 35 (PDF), pp. 3857-3859

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Executive Mansion, Washington,

Jan. 19, 1865.

Lieut. General Grant:

Please read and answer this letter as though I was not President, but only a friend. My son, now in his twenty second year, having graduated at Harvard, wishes to see something of the war before it ends. I do not wish to put him in the ranks, nor yet to give him a commission, to which those who have already served long, are better entitled, and better qualified to hold. Could he, without embarrassment to you, or detriment to the service, go into your Military family with some nominal rank, I, and not the public, furnishing his necessary means? If no, say so without the least hesitation, because I am as anxious, and as deeply interested, that you shall not be encumbered as you can be yourself.

Yours truly

A. LINCOLN

Letter to Charles Ray (June 27, 1858)

“How in God’s name do you let such paragraphs into the Tribune, as the enclosed cut from that paper of yesterday? Does Sheahan write them?”

In The Railsplitter

Contributing Editors for this page include Jim Coe

Ranking

#37 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

Audio Version

On This Date

HD Daily Report, June 27, 1858

The Lincoln Log, June 27, 1858

Close Readings

Custom Map

How Historians Interpret

“A recently discovered Lincoln letter from early in the 1858 campaign shows his partisan teeth bared even more sharply. ‘How in God’s name do you let such paragraph into the Tribune,’ he wrote to Charles H. Ray, complaining about an article from the previous day’s Chicago Tribune. ‘Does Sheahan write them?’ he added, sarcastically referring to James Sheahan, the Democratic editor of the Chicago Times. Continuing the assault and the gratuitous insults, Lincoln then asked, ‘How can you have failed to perceive that in this short paragraph you have completely answered all your own well put complains of [Horace] Greely [sic] and Sister Burlingame?’ The slur against Massachusetts congressman Anson Burlingame’s manhood might actually qualify this particular letter as the fiercest in the Lincoln partisan canon.”

—Matthew Pinsker, “Lincoln and the Lessons of Party Leadership” in Lincoln and Liberty: Wisdom for the Ages, ed. Lucas E. Morel (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2014), 199.

“Through authoritative communications like these, Lincoln had by July strong-armed the Republican press into full conformity and allegiance, at least in Illinois. Independent-minded, out-of-state renegades like Greely, primarily eager to injure the Buchanan administration by encouraging dissident Democrats like Douglas, proved harder to tame. Their unpredictable behavior convinced stalwart David Davis that the Republican Party remained merely ‘confederated,’ not ‘consolidated,’ and unless brought into line would be powerless to battle ‘the infernal South, that prolific monster of ruin, niggers, and disunion.’ Bring the statewide party and press into line Lincoln did. Now it was time to take the Senate battle to the people.”

—Harold Holzer, Lincoln and the Power of the Press (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015), 174-175.

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

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My dear Sir,

How in God’s name do you let such paragraphs into the Tribune, as the enclosed cut from that paper of yesterday? Does Sheahan write them? How can you have failed to perceive that in this short paragraph you have completely answered all your own well put complaints of Greely [Greeley] and Sister Burlingame? What right have you to interfere in Indiana, more than they in Illinois? And what possible argument can be made why all Republicans shall stand out of Hon. John G. Davis’s way in his district in Indiana that can not be made why all Republicans in Illinois shall stand out of Hon. S.A. Douglas’s way? The part in larger type is plainly editorial, and your editorial at that, as you do not credit it to any other paper. I confess it astonishes me.

Yours truly, A. Lincoln.

Letter to George McClellan (October 13, 1862)

“Are you not over-cautious when you assume that you can not do what the enemy is constantly doing? Should you not claim to be at least his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim?”

Contributing Editors for this page include Brian Elsner and Susan Segal

Ranking

#44 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

Context. George Brinton McClellan was appointed the Commander of the Army of the Potomac in 1861 and then General-in-Chief later that year. In March of 1862, he was removed as the General-in-Chief while he was away from Washington as part of the Peninsula Campaign. Then, on November 5, 1862, he was removed as Commander of the Army of the Potomac. Although McClellan was popular with the troops under his command, who called him “Little Mac,” he had vocal critics in the Republican-controlled Congress and President Lincoln had become increasingly frustrated with McClellan’s delays in pursuing the enemy. This letter from October 13, 1862, less than a month after the Union victory at Antietam (Sharpsburg), clearly illustrates that frustration. (By Susan Segal)

Audio Version

On This Date

HD Daily Report, October 13, 1862

The Lincoln Log, October 13, 1862

Close Readings

Posted at YouTube by “Understanding Lincoln” participant Susan Segal, October 18, 2013. See also Segal’s blog post (via Quora), September 29, 2013

Brian Elsner, “Understanding Lincoln” blog post (via Quora), October 7, 2013

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How Historians Interpret

“If Lee stayed put at Winchester, Lincoln urged, the Army of the Potomac should ‘fight him there, on the idea that if we can not beat him when he bears the wastage of coming to us, we never can when we bear the wastage of going to him. This proposition is a simple truth, and is too important to be lost sight of for a moment. In coming to us, he tenders us an advantage which we should not waive. We should not so operate as to merely drive him away. As we must beat him somewhere, or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier near to us, than far away. If we can not beat the enemy where he now is, we never can, he again being within the entrenchments of Richmond.’ After describing how the Union army could be easily supplied as it moved toward the Confederate capital, Lincoln assured Little Mac that his letter was ‘in no sense an order.’ Lincoln feared that this admonition would have little effect, even though it implicitly gave McClellan only one last chance to redeem himself.”

–Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 2, Chapter 29 (PDF), 3153.

“By failing to attack the enemy, McClellan had made too many personal enemies to remain much longer in command of the North’s foremost army. Lincoln wanted McClellan to get back across the Potomac and engage with Lee, but, as a delay followed delay, the frustration of both the president and the senior command reached breaking point. In mid-October, Lincoln wrote to McClellan, in one of the longest communications he ever sent to his general, setting out the situation as he saw it. He pointed out that ‘you are now nearer Richmond than the enemy is by the route that you can, and he must take. Why can you not reach there before him… his route is the arc of a circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as good on yours as on his… If we cannot beat the enemy where he is now,’ Lincoln warned, ‘we never can.’ It was to no avail. Toward the end of the month, Lincoln’s patience was clearly running out.”

–Susan-Mary Grant, The War for a Nation (London: Routledge, 2006), 140.

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

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Executive Mansion, Washington, Oct. 13, 1862.

Major General McClellan

My dear Sir

You remember my speaking to you of what I called your over-cautiousness. Are you not over-cautious when you assume that you can not do what the enemy is constantly doing? Should you not claim to be at least his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim?

As I understand, you telegraph Gen. Halleck that you can not subsist your army at Winchester unless the Railroad from Harper’s Ferry to that point be put in working order. But the enemy does now subsist his army at Winchester at a distance nearly twice as great from railroad transportation as you would have to do without the railroad last named. He now wagons from Culpepper C.H. which is just about twice as far as you would have to do from Harper’s Ferry. He is certainly not more than half as well provided with wagons as you are. I certainly should be pleased for you to have the advantage of the Railroad from Harper’s Ferry to Winchester, but it wastes all the remainder of autumn to give it to you; and, in fact ignores the question of time, which can not, and must not be ignored.

Again, one of the standard maxims of war, as you know, is “to operate upon the enemy’s communications as much as possible without exposing your own.” You seem to act as if this applies against you, but can not apply in your favor. Change positions with the enemy, and think you not he would break your communication with Richmond within the next twentyfour hours? You dread his going into Pennsylvania. But if he does so in full force, he gives up his communications to you absolutely, and you have nothing to do but to follow, and ruin him; if he does so with less than full force, fall upon, and beat what is left behind all the easier.

Exclusive of the water line, you are now nearer Richmond than the enemy is by the route that you can, and he must take. Why can you not reach there before him, unless you admit that he is more than your equal on a march. His route is the arc of a circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as good on yours as on his.

You know I desired, but did not order, you to cross the Potomac below, instead of above the Shenandoah and Blue Ridge. My idea was that this would at once menace the enemies’ communications, which I would seize if he would permit. If he should move Northward I would follow him closely, holding his communications. If he should prevent our seizing his communications, and move towards Richmond, I would press closely to him, fight him if a favorable opportunity should present, and, at least, try to beat him to Richmond on the inside track. I say “try”; if we never try, we shall never succeed. If he make a stand at Winchester, moving neither North or South, I would fight him there, on the idea that if we can not beat him when he bears the wastage of coming to us, we never can when we bear the wastage of going to him. This proposition is a simple truth, and is too important to be lost sight of for a moment. In coming to us, he tenders us an advantage which we should not waive. We should not so operate as to merely drive him away. As we must beat him somewhere, or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier near to us, than far away. If we can not beat the enemy where he now is, we never can, he again being within the entrenchments of Richmond.

Recurring to the idea of going to Richmond on the inside track, the facility of supplying from the side away from the enemy is remarkable—as it were, by the different spokes of a wheel extending from the hub towards the rim—and this whether you move directly by the chord, or on the inside arc, hugging the Blue Ridge more closely. The chord-line, as you see, carries you by Aldie, Hay-Market, and Fredericksburg; and you see how turn-pikes, railroads, and finally, the Potomac by Acquia Creek, meet you at all points from Washington. The same, only the lines lengthened a little, if you press closer to the Blue Ridge part of the way. The gaps through the Blue Ridge I understand to be about the following distances from Harper’s Ferry, towit: Vestal’s five miles; Gregorie’s, thirteen, Snicker’s eighteen, Ashby’s, twenty-eight, Mannassas, thirty-eight, Chester fortyfive, and Thornton’s fiftythree. I should think it preferable to take the route nearest the enemy, disabling him to make an important move without your knowledge, and compelling him to keep his forces together, for dread of you. The gaps would enable you to attack if you should wish. For a great part of the way, you would be practically between the enemy and both Washington and Richmond, enabling us to spare you the greatest number of troops from here. When at length, running for Richmond ahead of him enables him to move this way; if he does so, turn and attack him in rear. But I think he should be engaged long before such point is reached. It is all easy if our troops march as well as the enemy; and it is unmanly to say they can not do it.

This letter is in no sense an order.

Yours truly

A. LINCOLN

Letter to Lyman Trumbull (December 10, 1860)

“Stand firm. The tug has to come, & better now, than any time hereafter.”

Contributing Editors for this page include Annemarie Gray and Susan Williams Phelps

Ranking

#45 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

Audio Version

On This Date

HD Daily Report, December 10, 1860

The Lincoln Log, December 10, 1860

Close Readings

Posted at YouTube by “Understanding Lincoln” participant Annemarie Gray, November 15, 2013

Susan Williams Phelps, “Understanding Lincoln” blog post (via Quora), September 9, 2013

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How Historians Interpret

“Discarding his longtime Whiggish belief in congressional supremacy, Lincoln forcefully interjected himself into the congressional debate. No previous president-elect ever made such a show of power and influence before his swearing in. He delivered no public speeches and issued no state papers on the compromise issue – to do so, he still believed, would only exacerbate matters by angering both anti-slavery men and border state conservatives. Instead, he made his views clear in a series of remarkably tough letters to key allies on Capitol Hill, which he knew would be widely shared with other Republicans. Hoping still to embolden Southern Unionists, or at best steel the rest of the country for the possible use of force to protect federal property and collect revenues, he now made it clear he would reject fundamental concessions that might guarantee both, but at the expense of slavery expansion. Lincoln’s reply to Trumbull left little doubt where he stood. ‘Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery,’ came the pointed instructions. ‘If there be, all our labor is lost, and ere long, must be done again. The dangerous ground – that into which some of our friends have a hankering to run – is Pop[ular]. Sov[reignty]. Have none of it. Stand firm. The tug has to come, & better now, than any time hereafter.”

— Harold Holzer, Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 158.)

“The symbolic significance of the issue of slavery in the territories, as well as its practical implications, dominated his thinking in the winter of 1860-61… On December 10, he wrote Trumbull in the same vein: ‘Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and, ere long, must be done again. The dangerous ground – that into which some of our friends have a hankering to run – is Pop. Sov. Have none of it. Stand firm. The tug has to come, & better now, than any time hereafter.’ A week later, he reiterated to Trumbull his firm stance: ‘If any of our friends do prove false, and fix up a compromise on the territorial question, I am for fighting again.’” 1938-1940

–Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 1, Chapter 17 (PDF), 1938-1940.

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Private & confidential.

Dec. 10, 1860

Hon. L.Trumbull. Springfield, Ills.

My dear Sir:

Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and, ere long, must be done again. The dangerous ground—that into which some of our friends have a hankering to run—is Pop. Sov. Have none of it. Stand firm. The tug has to come, & better now, than any time hereafter.

Yours as ever

A. LINCOLN.

Letter to George McClellan (October 25, 1862)

“Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigue anything?”

Contributing Editors for this page include Brian Elsner and Thomas Warf

Ranking

#51 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, October 25, 1862

The Lincoln Log, October 25, 1862

Close Readings

Posted at YouTube by “Understanding Lincoln” course participant Thomas Warf, August 2014

Brian Elsner, “Understanding Lincoln” blog post (via Quora), October 7, 2013

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How Historians Interpret

“In response to McClellan’s explanation that his horses were exhausted, Lincoln sent a tart reply through Halleck: ‘The President has read your telegram, and directs me to suggest that, if the enemy had more occupation south of the river, his cavalry would not be so likely to make raids north of it.’ Shortly thereafter, Lincoln more pointedly wired the Young Napoleon: ‘I have just received your dispatch about sore tongued and fatiegued horses. Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigue anything?’ Indignant at what he considered a ‘dirty little fling,’ McClellan sent a lengthy report on his cavalry but failed to deal with Lincoln’s larger point, that the army’s inactivity threatened the war effort.”

–Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 2, Chapter 29 (PDF), 3150.

“On October 25, the War Department received a cavalry report forwarded by McClellan. In it, a Massachusetts cavalry colonel reported that 128 of his 267 horses were too ill or disabled to leave camp and that ‘the horses, which are still sound are absolutely broken down from fatigue and want of flesh.’ This report provided Lincoln with an outlet for his frustration as he wired McClellan, ‘I have just read your dispatch about sore tongued and fatiegued [sic] horses. Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietem that fatigue anything? McClellan responded with a list of cavalry activities and defiantly concluded ‘If any instance can be found where overworked Cavalry has performed more labor than mine since the Battle of Antietam I am not conscious of it.’ Not surprisingly, McClellan missed the point of Lincoln’s jab.”

–Edward H. Bonekemper, III, McClellan and Failure (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2007), 151.

NOTE TO READERS

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Majr. Genl. McClellan

I have just read your despatch about sore tongued and fatigued horses. Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigue anything?

A. LINCOLN

Plan of Campaign (August, 1840)

1st. Appoint one person in each county as county captain, and take his pledge to perform promptly all the duties assigned him.

In The Railsplitter

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#54 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

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On This Date

[Editorial Note: The editors of Lincoln’s Collected Works put this undated “Plan of Campaign” as being created sometime in January 1840, but Matthew Pinsker, who edits this site, considers it more likely to have been created in August 1840, following the local Illinois elections.]

HD Daily Report, August 1, 1840

The Lincoln Log, August 1840

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How Historians Interpret

“Perhaps the two most prominent monuments of this aspect of his political life were his campaign plan for 1840 and his 1843 resolutions laying out a pattern of organization embracing local, county and district conventions with committees and captains at every level to carry on the electioneering work.”

—Joel H. Silbey, “‘Always a Whig in Politics’ The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln,” The Journal of Abraham Lincoln Studies 8, no. 1 (1986), 21-42.

“Setting aside his earlier fears that an enlarged party machinery could be ripe for manipulation by party elders, in January 1840, he became a coauthor of a circular that would ‘appoint one person in each county as county captain,’ with the precinct captain and section captain ‘to perform promptly all the duties assigned him.’ The Whigs, put on the defensive by the organizational structures of their Democratic opponents, were determined to tighten their own organization. ‘Our intention is to organize the whole State, so that every Whig can be brought to the polls in the coming presidential election.’”

—Ronald C. White, A Lincoln: A Biography (New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2009), 92.

NOTE TO READERS

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Lincoln’s Plan of Campaign in 1840

1st. Appoint one person in each county as county captain, and take his pledge to perform promptly all the duties assigned him.

Duties of the County Captain

1st. To procure from the poll-books a separate list for each Precinct of all the names of all those persons who voted the Whig ticket in August.

2nd. To appoint one person in each Precinct as Precinct Captain, and, by a personal interview with him, procure his pledge, to perform promptly all the duties assigned him.

3rd. To deliver to each Precinct Captain the list of names as above, belonging to his Precinct; and also a written list of his duties.

Duties of the Precinct Captain.

1st. To divide the list of names delivered him by the county Captain, into Sections of ten who reside most convenient to each other.

2nd. To appoint one person of each Section as Section Captain, and by a personal interview with him, procure his pledge to perform promptly all the duties assigned him.

3rd. To deliver to each Section Captain the list of names belonging to his Section and also a written list of his duties.

Duties of the Section Captain.

1st. To see each man of his Section face to face, and procure his pledge that he will for no consideration (impossibilities excepted) stay from the polls on the first monday in November; and that he will record his vote as early on the day as possible.

2nd. To add to his Section the name of every person in his vicinity who did not vote with us in August, but who will vote with us in the fall, and take the same pledge of him, as from the others.

3rd. To task himself to procure at least such additional names to his Section.

Letter to William Seward (April 1, 1861)

“Since parting with you I have been considering your paper dated this day, and entitled ‘Some thoughts for the President’s consideration.’ The first proposition in it is, ‘1st. We are at the end of a month’s administration, and yet without a policy, either domestic or foreign.'”

Contributing editors for this page include Moyra Schauffler

Ranking

#56 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, April 1, 1861

The Lincoln Log, April 1, 1861

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Moyra Schauffler, “Lincoln Responds to Seward,” (Dickinson College, Spring 2015)

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How Historians Interpret

“One of Lincoln’s greatest challenges was taming his secretary of state. ‘I can’t afford to let Seward take the first trick,’ he told Nicolay in early March. While struggling with the Fort Sumter dilemma, Lincoln had to keep the wily New Yorker, who presumed he would serve as the Grand Vizier of the administration, from taking not just the first trick but the entire rubber. Seward hoped to dominate Lincoln just as he had dominated President Zachary Taylor. Seward evidently wished the motto of the administration to be, ‘The King reigns, but does not govern.’ He told a European diplomat that there ‘exists no great difference between an elected president of the United States and a hereditary monarch. The latter is called to the throne through the accident of birth, the former through the chances which make his election possible. The actual direction of public affairs belongs to the leader of the ruling party here just as in a hereditary principality.’ The New Yorker considered himself, not Lincoln, the ‘leader of the ruling party.’ In his own eyes, he was a responsible, knowledgeable, veteran statesman who must guide the naïve, inexperienced Illinoisan toward sensible appointments and policies. Unlike Lincoln, he did not believe that the new administration had to carry out the Republicans’ Chicago platform.”

–Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 2, Chapter 22 (PDF), 2327-2328.

“Throughout the war years, Seward, while remaining a faithful subordinate to Lincoln, enjoyed the President’s complete confidence. If Seward was in any sense a prime minister, it was because the chief executive desired him to play that role. Yet a myth persists to the contrary.”

— Norman B. Ferris, “Lincoln and Seward in Civil War Diplomacy: Their Relationship at the Outset Reexamined,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 12, no. 1 (1991), 21-42.

NOTE TO READERS

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Executive Mansion

April 1, 1861

Hon. W. H. Seward

My dear Sir:

Since parting with you I have been considering your paper dated this day, and entitled “Some thoughts for the President’s consideration.” The first proposition in it is, “1st. We are at the end of a month’s administration, and yet without a policy, either domestic or foreign.”

At the beginning of that month, in the inaugeral, I said “The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties, and imposts.” This had your distinct approval at the time; and, taken in connection with the order I immediately gave General Scott, directing him to employ every means in his power to strengthen and hold the forts, comprises the exact domestic policy you now urge, with the single exception, that it does not propose to abandon Fort Sumpter.

Again, I do not perceive how the re-inforcement of Fort Sumpter would be done on a slavery, or party issue, while that of Fort Pickens would be on a more national, and patriotic one.

The news received yesterday in regard to St. Domingo, certainly brings a new item within the range of our foreign policy; but up to that time we have been preparing circulars, and instructions to ministers, and the like, all in perfect harmony, without even a suggestion that we had no foreign policy.

Upon your closing propositions, that “whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prossecution of it”

“For this purpose it must be somebody’s business to pursue and direct it incessantly”

“Either the President must do it himself, and be all the while active in it, or”

“Devolve it on some member of his cabinet”

“Once adopted, debates on it must end, and all agree and abide” I remark that if this must be done, I must do it. When a general line of policy is adopted, I apprehend there is no danger of its being changed without good reason, or continuing to be a subject of unnecessary debate; still, upon points arising in its progress, I wish, and suppose I am entitled to have the advice of all the cabinet.

Your Obt. Servt.

A. LINCOLN

Letter to John Fremont (September 2, 1861)

“Two points in your proclamation of August 30th give me some anxiety.”

Contributing Editors for this page include Thomas Warf

Ranking

#57 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, September 2, 1861

The Lincoln Log, September 2, 1861

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–Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript By Chapters, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 2, Chapter 24 (PDF), pp. 2587-2591

Close Readings

Posted at YouTube by “Understanding Lincoln” course participant Thomas Warf, August 2014

How Historians Interpret

“Frémont’s political blundering upset Lincoln more than his military ineptitude. On August 30, the impulsive, flamboyant, grandiose Pathfinder of the West issued a proclamation establishing martial law throughout Missouri, condemning to death civilians caught with weapons behind Union lines, and freeing the slaves and seizing the property of rebels. Before issuing this fateful decree, he had consulted his wife and a Quaker abolitionist but no one in the administration. While the Northern press generally lauded the Pathfinder’s emancipation edict, residents of the Bluegrass State indignantly denounced it as ‘an abominable, atrocious, and infamous usurpation’. . .Lincoln gently but firmly urged Frémont to rescind the emancipation order, which went beyond the Confiscation Act passed by Congress in early August, freeing only those slaves directly supporting Confederate military efforts. . .The quarrelsome Frémont, who was temperamentally reluctant to follow orders and predisposed to ignore others’ feelings, rashly declined to modify his decree without being instructed to do so. He argued that if ‘I were to retract of my own accord it would imply that I myself thought it wrong and that I had acted without the reflection which the gravity of the point demanded. But I did not do so. I acted with full deliberation and upon the certain conviction that it was a measure right and necessary, and I think so still.’ Defiantly, Frémont ordered thousands of copies of the original proclamation distributed after the president had demanded its modification. Reluctantly, Lincoln complied with Frémont ’s request for a direct order and thus ignited a firestorm of protest. His mailbag overflowed with letters denouncing the revocation. Pro-secession Missourians took heart. One observer reckoned that the president’s action ‘gave more ‘aid and comfort to the enemy’ in that State than if he had made the rebel commander, Sterling Price, a present of fifty pieces of rifled cannon.'”

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Private and confidential.

Washington D.C. Sept. 2, 1861.

Major General Fremont

My dear Sir:

Two points in your proclamation of August 30th give me some anxiety. First, should you shoot a man, according to the proclamation, the Confederates would very certainly shoot our best man in their hands in retaliation; and so, man for man, indefinitely. It is therefore my order that you allow no man to be shot, under the proclamation, without first having my approbation or consent.

Secondly, I think there is great danger that the closing paragraph, in relation to the confiscation of property, and the liberating slaves of traiterous owners, will alarm our Southern Union friends, and turn them against us—perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky. Allow me therefore to ask, that you will as of your own motion, modify that paragraph so as to conform to the first and fourth sections of the act of Congress, entitled, “An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes,” approved August, 6th, 1861, and a copy of which act I herewith send you. This letter is written in a spirit of caution and not of censure.

I send it by a special messenger, in order that it may certainly and speedily reach you.

Yours very truly

A. LINCOLN

Letter to Lorenzo Thomas (November 7, 1861)

“First. We need all the educated military talent we can get.”

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#58 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

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HD Daily Report, November 7, 1861

The Lincoln Log, November 7, 1861

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NOTE TO READERS

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Executive Mansion

Washington, November 7, 1861

Adjut. Genl. Thomas:

Sir:

Capt. Gurden Chapin, who was dismissed from the Army on the discovery of a letter written by him promising his father to resign and join the South, at a certain time and place, presets himself, and asks to be re-instated. He asks this, because he did not resign at the time promised, having already determined to not do so; and has since done good service, and been under fire on one occasion.

My view of all this class of cases is:

First. We need all educate military talent we can get.

Second. It [is] our interest to have as little of it as possible go to the enemy.

Third. That officers (and especially young ones, as Capt. Chapin is) who have been dismissed, even on good cause prima facie, and who still cling to us, protest their loyalty and refuse to take service under the enemy, as a general rule may safely be trusted. Examine his case, & if you are willing for him to be restored, so am I.

A. Lincoln

General War Order No. 1 (January 27, 1862)

“Ordered that the 22nd day of February 1862, be the day for a general movement of the Land and Naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces.”

Contributing Editors for this page include Wind Ralston

Ranking

#59 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, January 27, 1862

The Lincoln Log, January 27, 1862

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Close Readings

Posted at YouTube by “Understanding Lincoln” course participant Wind Ralson, September 2014

How Historians Interpret

“The president had waited patiently – and in vain – for McClellan’s plan of operations and, like the electorate, he was growing restless. ‘It is wonderful how public opinion is changing against McClellan,’ an Ohioan reported in late February. An editor quipped that he had no time to look over the many monthly magazines he received and was tempted to send them to Little Mac, ‘whose forte seemed to be reviewing.’ To smoke the general out, Lincoln resorted to an unusual expedient: on January 27, he issued ‘President’s General War Order No. 1,’ commanding all land and naval forces to begin a “general movement” against the enemy on George Washington’s birthday, February 22. (Privately, Stanton explained that ‘the Government was on the verge of bankruptcy, and at the rate of expenditure, the armies must move or the Government perish.’) As Hay observed, the issuance of this general war order marked a turning point: ‘He wrote it without any consultation and read it to the Cabinet, not for their sanction but for their information. From that time he influenced actively the operations of the Campaign. He stopped going to McClellan’s and sent for the general to come to him. Every thing grew busy and animated after this order.’ When the order was released to the press in March, the Cincinnati Gazette called it ‘the stroke that cut the cords which kept our great armies tied up in a state of inactivity.’”

— Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 2, Chapter 26 (PDF), 2829-2830.

“Although it appears that Lincoln intended his active involvement in military planning to be no more than a temporary expedient while McClellan was ill, the president never stepped back completely. McClellan subsequently attempted to exercise what he perceived from previous experience to be his responsibilities as general in chief. However, he found the autonomy he had previously enjoyed severely diminished, as Lincoln began directly challenging his conduct of military affairs through such actions as the issuance of President’s War Order No. 1 on January 27, setting a date for a general advance, and a special order on January 31 establishing the Army of the Potomac’s line of operations. Although both orders were ultimately rescinded, the tension and conflict produced by Lincoln’s new assertiveness, along with Stanton’s radical influence on the War Department, poisoned relations between the president and the general in chief. Their relationship deteriorated dramatically over the next few months and, by the time he began his grand campaign to crush the rebellion in March 1862, McClellan no longer possessed the trust and support he needed to achieve success on the battlefield.”

— Ethan S. Rafuse, “Typhoid and Tumult: Lincoln’s Response to General McClellan’s Bout with Typhoid Fever during the Winter of 1861-62,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 18, no. 2 (1997): 1-16.

“Lincoln’s two war orders, dated January 27 and January 31, intended only for the eyes of General McClellan and the secretaries of war and navy, have been widely criticized by historians as intrusive interference in war operations. John Codman Ropes, writing in 1894, described the General War Order No. 1 of January 27 as ‘a curious specimen of puerile impatience.’ What is often overlooked, however, is the purpose behind these two order (General War Order No. 1 specified ‘a general movement of the Land and Naval forces’ to take place on February 22; Special War Order No. 1 of January 31 ordered the execution of the Occoquan plan) Since his appointment on November 1, General-in-chief McClellan had only hinted at his strategic plans, and that rarely, or had flatly refused to divulge them even in the most general outline. It was true enough that Virginia was in the grip of its notorious mud season and that no general advance could now begin there before spring, yet to date no one in either the military or the civilian branch of the government (no one except General McClellan) knew if there was a single word on paper for what would prove to be the largest military operation of the war. Mr. Lincoln’s war orders did indeed signal his impatience, but there was nothing puerile about them. They served their purpose very nicely.”

“Lincoln and McClellan,” Stephen W. Sears in Lincoln’s Generals, ed. Gabor S. Boritt (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

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Executive Mansion, Washington,

January 27, 1862

President’s General War Order No. 1

Ordered that the 22nd day of February 1862, be the day for a general movement of the Land and Naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces.

That especially—

The Army at & about, Fortress Monroe.

The Army of the Potomac.

The Army of Western Virginia

The Army near Munfordsville [sic], Ky.

The Army and Flotilla at Cairo.

And a Naval force in the Gulf of Mexico, be ready for a movement on that day.

That all other forces, both Land and Naval, with their respective commanders, obey existing orders, for the time, and be ready to obey additional orders when duly given.

That the Heads of Departments, and especially the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, with all their subordinates; and the General-in-Chief, with all other commanders and subordinates, of Land and Naval forces, will severally be held to their strict and full responsibilities, for the prompt execution of this order.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Draft of Order sent to Army & Navy Departments respectively this day.

A. LINCOLN

Jan. 27. 1862.

The Secretary of War will enter this Order in his Department, and execute it to the best of his ability.

A. LINCOLN

Jan. 27, 1862.

Letter to Carl Schurz (November 10, 1862)

“We have lost the elections; and it is natural that each of us will believe, and say, it has been because his peculiar views was not made sufficiently prominent.”

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#67 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, November 10, 1862

The Lincoln Log, November 10, 1862

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How Historians Interpret

“Lincoln, after being barraged by numerous critics making points like Schurz’s, took that general’s letter as the occasion to reply to them all.189 He argued that three factors caused the Republican setback: “1. The democrats were left in a majority by our friends going to the war. 2. The democrats observed this & determined to re-instate themselves in power, and 3. Our newspaper’s, by vilifying and disparaging the administration, furnished them all the weapons to do it with. Certainly, the ill-success of the war had much to do with this.” The president explained why he had distributed military patronage to Democrats: “It so happened that very few of our friends had a military education or were of the profession of arms. It would have been a question whether the war should be conducted on military knowledge, or on political affinity, only that our own friends (I think Mr. Schurz included) seemed to think that such a question was inadmissable. Accordingly I have scarcely appointed a democrat to a command, who was not urged by many republicans and opposed by none. It was so as to McClellan. He was first brought forward by the Republican Governor of Ohio, & claimed, and contended for at the same time by the Republican Governor of Pennsylvania. I received recommendations from the republican delegations in congress, and I believe every one of them recommended a majority of democrats. But, after all many Republicans were appointed; and I mean no disparagement to them when I say I do not see that their superiority of success has been so marked as to throw great suspicion on the good faith of those who are not Republicans.”

–Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 2, Chapter 29 (PDF), 3172.

“But what this reveals is of how adamant Lincoln was about emancipation and his ‘vow,’ that he would take the chance of these touch-and-go elections, in the midst of an unwon war, and issue an Emancipation Proclamation only weeks before voting began. Looked at coldly, the timing of the Proclamation amounted to political suicide: Lincoln was putting the most highly charged issue of the war before voters, and the voters into the hands of the opposition, without any time for the shock to wear off. ‘Three main causes told the whole story’ of the election, Lincoln wrote to Carl Schurz on November 10: The soldiers went off to war, leaving only the grumblers and disaffected at home, the Democrats saw the Proclamation as an opportunity to sow political havoc; and the newspapers ‘furnished them all with weapons to do so.’”

–Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 189-190.

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Private and Confidential

Executive Mansion, Washington, Nov. 10. 1862.

Gen. Schurz

My dear Sir

Yours of the 8th. was, to-day, read to me by Mrs. S[churz]. We have lost the elections; and it is natural that each of us will believe, and say, it has been because his peculiar views was not made sufficiently prominent. I think I know what it was, but I may be mistaken. Three main causes told the whole story. 1. The democrats were left in a majority by our friends going to the war. 2. The democrats observed this & determined to re-instate themselves in power, and 3. Our newspaper’s, by vilifying and disparaging the administration, furnished them all the weapons to do it with. Certainly, the ill-success of the war had much to do with this.

You give a different set of reasons. If you had not made the following statements, I should not have suspected them to be true. “The defeat of the administration is the administrations own fault.” (opinion) “It admitted its professed opponents to its counsels” (Asserted as a fact) “It placed the Army, now a great power in this Republic, into the hands of its’ enemys” (Asserted as a fact) “In all personal questions, to be hostile to the party of the Government, seemed, to be a title to consideration.” (Asserted as a fact) “If to forget the great rule, that if you are true to your friends, your friends will be true to you, and that you make your enemies stronger by placing them upon an equality with your friends.” “Is it surprising that the opponents of the administration should have got into their hands the government of the principal states, after they have had for a long time the principal management of the war, the great business of the national government.”

I can not dispute about the matter of opinion. On the the [sic] three matters (stated as facts) I shall be glad to have your evidence upon them when I shall meet you. The plain facts, as they appear to me, are these. The administration came into power, very largely in a minority of the popular vote. Notwithstanding this, it distributed to it’s party friends as nearly all the civil patronage as any administration ever did. The war came. The administration could not even start in this, without assistance outside of it’s party. It was mere nonsense to suppose a minority could put down a majority in rebellion. Mr. Schurz (now Gen. Schurz ) was about here then & I do not recollect that he then considered all who were not republicans, were enemies of the government, and that none of them must be appointed to to [sic] military positions. He will correct me if I am mistaken. It so happened that very few of our friends had a military education or were of the profession of arms. It would have been a question whether the war should be conducted on military knowledge, or on political affinity, only that our own friends (I think Mr. Schurz included) seemed to think that such a question was inadmissable. Accordingly I have scarcely appointed a democrat to a command, who was not urged by many republicans and opposed by none. It was so as to McClellan. He was first brought forward by the Republican Governor of Ohio, & claimed, and contended for at the same time by the Republican Governor of Pennsylvania. I received recommendations from the republican delegations in congress, and I believe every one of them recommended a majority of democrats. But, after all many Republicans were appointed; and I mean no disparagement to them when I say I do not see that their superiority of success has been so marked as to throw great suspicion on the good faith of those who are not Republicans.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN

Letter to Michael Hahn (March 13, 1864)

“I barely suggest for your private consideration, whether some of the colored people may not be let in—as, for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty within the family of freedom. But this is only a suggestion, not to the public, but to you alone.”

Contributing Editors for this page include Adam Grant Kelley

Ranking

#72 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, March 13, 1864

The Lincoln Log, March 13, 1864

Close Readings

Close.Reading.Hahn from Adam Kelley on Vimeo with transcript available via Quora

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How Historians Interpret

“A delegation who came before the president to plead the cause of loyal, black Louisianans may have made the pivotal impression on Lincoln. The group was headed by Jean Baptiste Roudanez and Arnold Bertonneau, educated mulatto Creoles and New Orleans businessmen. In their presence, Lincoln remained noncommittal, stressing the inability of the federal government to suffrage on private citizens. But the next day he wrote to loyalist Governor Michael Hahn of Louisiana, saying: ‘Now you are about to have a [constitutional] Convention which, among other things, will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest for your private consideration, whether some of the colored people might not be let in — as, for instance, the very intelligent and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks.’ As the border states had reacted to Lincoln’s suggestion of gradual emancipation, so Louisiana now responded to his suggestion of limited suffrage. Its constitutional convention failed to enfranchise any blacks but instead referred the question to the state legislature, meaning that suffrage never would be granted in Louisiana.”

— Eugene H. Berwanger, “Lincoln’s Constitutional Dilemma: Emancipation and Black Suffrage,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 5, no. 1 (1983): 25-38.

“Banks’ ‘confidence in the practicability of constructing a free state-government, speedily, for Louisiana,’ and his ‘zeal to accomplish it’ gratified Lincoln, who urged the general to ‘proceed with all possible dispatch.’ To assist Banks, Lincoln let it be known that all federal appointees in Louisiana should give the general ‘full, and zealous cooperation.’ Lincoln’s fateful decision to place Banks in charge would profoundly affect the course of reconstruction not only in Louisiana but also throughout the South. True to his word, Banks delivered a free state government in less than two months. Emboldened by his new authority, he scrapped the Free State Committee’s plan to hold a constitutional convention and mandated that on February 22 elections be held for governor and other state officials, based on the 1852 state constitution. To nullify provisions of that document sanctioning slavery, the general promulgated special orders. Michael Hahn, a Moderate, won the governorship, defeating the Radical Benjamin Flanders and the Conservative J. Q. A. Fellows. The turnout of more than 11,000 voters far exceeded the ten per cent requirement. Lincoln congratulated Hahn for ‘having fixed your name in history as the first-free-state Governor of Louisiana.’ Five weeks later, 6,000 voters participated in the election of delegates to a constitutional convention, which met from April through July. In September, the resulting document won ratification by a handsome majority (6,836 to 1,566). Lincoln and Banks had transformed the sputtering reconstruction efforts of the Free State Committee and General Shepley into a successful movement restoring the Bayou State on the basis of liberty. By all rights, the Radicals should have been pleased, but they were not.”

— Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 2, Chapter 32 (PDF), 3548-3549.

NOTE TO READERS

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Private

Executive Mansion, Washington,

March 13. 1864.

Hon. Michael Hahn

My dear Sir:

I congratulate you on having fixed your name in history as the first-free-state Governor of Louisiana. Now you are about to have a Convention which, among other things, will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest for your private consideration, whether some of the colored people may not be let in—as, for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty within the family of freedom. But this is only a suggestion, not to the public, but to you alone.

Yours truly

A. LINCOLN

Instructions for John Nicolay (July 16, 1860)

“Tell him my motto is “Fairness to all,” But commit me to nothing.”

In Honest Abe

Ranking

#82 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, July 16, 1860

The Lincoln Log, July 16, 1860

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How Historians Interpret

“It is only this scrap of writing which makes the incident at all worthy of record. There could be no better exemplification of Mr. Lincoln’s character and caution than this short memorandum of instructions. It reflects all his directness of method, all his sincerity of dealing, all his determination to keep free from any entanglements of intrigue, and to expressly avoid any inferential obligations. ‘Commit me to nothing’ is his positive injunction; on the other hand the announcement of his motto ‘fairness to all’ is the promise of that broad liberality which he carried out as President, and through which he maintained the easy party leadership that secured his renomination and re-election.”

–Michael Burlingame, An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay’s Interviews and Essays (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996), 94.

“Callers who tried to get at Lincoln personally in his temporary capital office were screened first by Nicolay, who was told to schedule interviews only if ‘indispensable’ and to ‘commit me to nothing’ Lincoln did not even write to the vice-presidential nominee whom the convention had selected for him Hannibal Hamlin, a former Maine Democrat, until mid-July.”

–Allen C. Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 248.

“Although concerned with progress in all the Northern states, he focused his attention primarily on the critical West. He urged Caleb Smith to do his utmost in Indiana, believing that nothing would affect the November results in Illinois more strongly than the momentum provided by an Indiana victory in the October state elections. In July, he sent Nicolay to an Indiana supporter who wished to prevent a Bell ticket from being placed on the ballot. ‘Ascertain what he wants,’ Lincoln instructed Nicolay. ‘On what subjects he would converse with me. And the particulars if he will give them. Is an interview indispensable? Tell him my motto is ‘Fairness to all,’ but commit me to nothing.’”

–Doris Kearns Goodwin, T eam of Rivals (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 272.

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Ascertain what he wants.

On what subjects he would converse with me.

And the particulars if he will give them.

Is an interview indispensable?

Tell him my motto is “Fairness to all,”

But commit me to nothing.

Letter to William Kellogg (December 11, 1860)

“Douglas is sure to be again trying to bring in his ‘Pop. Sov.’ Have none of it. The tug has to come & better now than later.”

Ranking

#83 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, December 11, 1860

The Lincoln Log, December 11, 1860

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How Historians Interpret

“When William Kellogg, an Illinois Republican congressman, proposed a compromise including extension of the Missouri Compromise line, the paper denounced him: ‘He has sold himself to the slave power.’ Two weeks before Lincoln’s inauguration, the New York Times complained that the Republicans lacked a “settled plan” for dealing with secession. In fact, throughout the crisis Lincoln displayed remarkable consistency He proved willing to compromise on issues had always considered inessential, but refused to countenance any concession that rank the risk of sundering the Republican party and surrendering the results of the election before his administration began. In December 1860 and January 1861, he intervened forcefully in congressional deliberations, something no previous president-elect had done, to delineate what kinds of conciliatory measures he would and would not support.”

— Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010), 152.

“On December 6, Lincoln wrote to Congressman Kellogg, who had asked him for guidance: ‘Entertain no proposition for a compromise in regard to the extension of slavery. The instant you do, they have us under gain; all our labor is lost, and sooner or later must be done over. Douglas is sure to be again trying to bring in his ‘Pop. Sov.’ Have none of it. The tug has to come & better now than later. You know I think the fugitive slave clause of the constitution ought to be enforced – to put it on the mildest form, ought not to be resisted.’”

– Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 1, Chapter 17 (PDF), 1938-1939.

NOTE TO READERS

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Private & confidential..

Springfield, Ills.

Dec. 11. 1860

Hon. William Kellogg

My dear Sir—

Entertain no proposition for a compromise in regard to the extension of slavery. The instant you do, they have us under again; all our labor is lost, and sooner or later must be done over. Douglas is sure to be again trying to bring in his “Pop. Sov.” Have none of it. The tug has to come & better now than later.

You know I think the fugitive slave clause of the constitution ought to be enforced—to put it on the mildest form, ought not to be resisted. In haste

Yours as ever

A. LINCOLN

Letter to Hannibal Hamlin (September 28, 1862)

“The North responds to the proclamation sufficiently in breath; but breath alone kills no rebels.”

Ranking

#85 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, September 28, 1862

The Lincoln Log, September 28, 1862

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How Historians Interpret

“Not too many days after the preliminary proclamation was issued, Vice President Hannibal Hamlin wrote a letter to the president to express his ‘undissembled and sincere thanks for your Emancipation proclamation,’ which he predicted would ‘stand as the great act of the age… wise in Statesmanship as it is Patriotic.’ But Lincoln was not so sure. In a reply he labeled ‘strictly private,’ the president poured out his fears and frustrations over the early public response to his document. The fascinating letter reveals a chief executive who knows he will be judged not just by history but by his public constituency – and is clearly not at all sure he will emerge a winner. Modern Americans who doubt the revolutionary impetus and grand daring behind Lincoln’s most famous act will understand from the Hamlin letter how unpredictable its author believed its impact would be.”

— Frank J. Williams, “’Doing less’ and ‘Doing more’: The president and the Proclamation – Legally, Militarily, and Politically,” in The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views ed. Harold Holzer, Edna Greene Medford, Frank J. Williams (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006), 66.

“Public response to emancipation did not encourage Lincoln. On September 28, he told his vice-president that ‘while I hope something from the proclamation, my expectations are not as sanguine as are those of some friends. The time for its effect southward has not come; but northward the effect should be instantaneous. It is six days old, and while commendation in newspapers and by distinguished individuals is all that a vain man could wish, the stocks have declined, and troops come forward more slowly than ever. This, looked soberly in the face, is not very satisfactory. We have fewer troops in the field at the end of six days than we had at the beginning – the attrition among the old outnumbering the addition by the new. The North responds to the proclamation sufficiently in breath; but breath alone kills no rebels.’”

— Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 2, Chapter 28 (PDF), 3530.

NOTE TO READERS

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(Strictly private.)

Executive Mansion,

Washington,

September 28, 1862.

My Dear Sir:

Your kind letter of the 25th is just received. It is known to some that while I hope something from the proclamation, my expectations are not as sanguine as are those of some friends. The time for its effect southward has not come; but northward the effect should be instantaneous.

It is six days old, and while commendation in newspapers and by distinguished individuals is all that a vain man could wish, the stocks have declined, and troops come forward more slowly than ever. This, looked soberly in the face, is not very satisfactory. We have fewer troops in the field at the end of six days than we had at the beginning—the attrition among the old outnumbering the addition by the new. The North responds to the proclamation sufficiently in breath; but breath alone kills no rebels.

I wish I could write more cheerfully; nor do I thank you the less for the kindness of your letter.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.

Letter to Alexander McClure (August 30, 1860)

“When you say you are organizing every election district, do you mean to include the idea that you are ‘canvassing’ – ‘counting noses?'”

In The Railsplitter

Ranking

#97 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, August 30, 1860

The Lincoln Log, August 30, 1860

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How Historians Interpret

“Lincoln also asked Alexander K. McClure, chairman of the Pennsylvania State Republican Committee, to keep him informed of the status of the campaign at the local level. On August 27, Lincoln responded to McClure report on the campaign by asking, ‘When you say you are organizing every election district, do you mean to include the idea that you are ‘canvassing’—‘counting noses?’’ Lincoln’s inquiry reveals the keen interest that he took in local party organization during the 1860 campaign. A New York visitor reported after a meeting with Lincoln: ‘He sat down beside me on the sofa and commenced talking about political affairs in my own State with a knowledge of details which surprised me.’”

William C. Harris, “Lincoln’s Role in the 1860 Presidential Campaign” in Exploring Lincoln: Great Historians Reappraise Our Greatest President, Ed. Harold Holzer, Craig L. Symonds, and Frank J. Williams, (New York: Fordham University Press, 2015).

NOTE TO READERS

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Private

Springfield, Ills. Aug. 30, 1860

A.K. McClure, Esq.

My dear Sir,

Yours of the 27th was received last evening; as also was one only a few days before. Neither of these bears quite so hopeful a tone as your former letters. When you say you are organizing every election district, do you mean to include the idea that you are “canvassing” – “counting noses?”

I am always glad to see your letters.

Yours very truly,

A.Lincoln

Letter to Don Buell (January 13, 1862)

“With this preliminary, I state my general idea of this war to be that we have the greater numbers, and the enemy has the greater facility of concentrating forces upon points of collision; that we must fail, unless we can find some way of making our advantage an over-match for his; and that this can only be done by menacing him with superior forces at different points, at the same time; so that we can safely attack, one, or both, if he makes no change; and if he weakens one to strengthen the other, forbear to attack the strengthened one, but seize, and hold the weakened one, gaining so much.”

Ranking

#98 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, January 13, 1862

The Lincoln Log, January 13, 1862

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How Historians Interpret

“Nonetheless, by early 1862, Lincoln’s correspondence reveals an increasing facility with the language and theoretical concepts of the professional soldier, and he applied his newfound knowledge to make clear to his generals both what he wanted to accomplish and how he expected it to be done. On 13 January 1862, he explained his thoughts quite clearly in a letter to Brigadier General Don Carlos Buell:

I state my general idea of this war to be that we have the greater numbers, and the enemy has the greater facility of concentrating forces upon points of collision; that we must fail, unless we can find some way of making our advantage an over-match for his; and that this can only be done by menacing him with superior forces at different points, at the same time; so that we can safely attack, one, or both, if he makes no change; and if he weakens one to strengthen the other, forbear to attack the strengthened one, but seize, and hold the weakened one, gaining so much.

Lincoln had identified the key problem. His plan could not work without a general in chief capable of developing a unified plan for coordinated action and then executing it.”

–Carol Reardon, With a Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the Other: The Problem of Military Thought in the Civil War North (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 28.

“On January 13 Lincoln had written to Buell that the Union had the greater numbers but the Confederacy the greater facility of concentrating troops at points of decision, that therefore a proper strategy for the Union was to menace the Confederacy with superior forces at different points at the same time, that if the Confederate commander should weaken one point to strengthen another, then the Union ought to withhold attack from the strengthened point but attack the weakened one.”

–Charles P. Roland, Albert Sidney Johnston: Soldier of Three Republics (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2001), 288.

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Executive Mansion, Washington,

Jan. 13, 1862.

Brig. Genl. Buell.

My dear Sir:

Your despatch of yesterday is received, in which you say “I have received your letter and Gen. McClellan’s; and will, at once devote all my efforts to your views, and his.” In the midst of my many cares, I have not seen, or asked to see, Gen. McClellan’s letter to you. For my own views, I have not offered, and do not now offer them as orders; and while I am glad to have them respectfully considered, I would blame you to follow them contrary to your own clear judgment—unless I should put them in the form of orders. As to Gen. McClellan’s views, you understand your duty in regard to them better than I do. With this preliminary, I state my general idea of this war to be that we have the greater numbers, and the enemy has the greater facility of concentrating forces upon points of collision; that we must fail, unless we can find some way of making our advantage an over-match for his; and that this can only be done by menacing him with superior forces at different points, at the same time; so that we can safely attack, one, or both, if he makes no change; and if he weakens one to strengthen the other, forbear to attack the strengthened one, but seize, and hold the weakened one, gaining so much. To illustrate, suppose last summer, when Winchester ran away to re-inforce Mannassas, we had forborne to attack Mannassas, but had seized and held Winchester. I mention this to illustrate, and not to criticise. I did not lose confidence in McDowell, and I think less harshly of Patterson than some others seem to. In application of the general rule I am suggesting, every particular case will have its modifying circumstances, among which the most constantly present, and most difficult to meet, will be the want of perfect knowledge of the enemies’ movements. This had it’s part in the Bull-Run case; but worse, in that case, was the expiration of the terms of the three months men. Applying the principle to your case, my idea is that Halleck shall menace Columbus, and “down river” generally; while you menace Bowling-Green, and East Tennessee. If the enemy shall concentrate at Bowling-Green, do not retire from his front; yet do not fight him there, either, but seize Columbus and East Tennessee, one or both, left exposed by the concentration at Bowling Green. It is matter of no small anxiety to me and one which I am sure you will not over-look, that the East Tennessee line, is so long, and over so bad a road.

Yours very truly

A. LINCOLN.

Letter to John Dix (January 14, 1863)

“The proclamation has been issued. We were not succeeding—at best, were progressing too slowly—without it. Now, that we have it, and bear all the disadvantage of it, (as we do bear some in certain quarters) we must also take some benefit from it, if practicable.”

Ranking

#104 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, January 14, 1863

The Lincoln Log, January 14, 1863

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–Herman Hattaway, “Lincoln’s Presidential Example in Dealing with the Military,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 7.1 (1985)

How Historians Interpret

“By spring the President was urging a massive recruitment of Negro troops. When neither General Butler not General Fremont accepted his offer to go South and raise a black army, Lincoln turned directly to men already in the field. ‘The colored population is the great available and yet unavailed of, force for restoring the Union,’ he reminded Andrew Johnson, whom he had appointed military governor of Tennessee, and he urged Johnson to take the lead in raising a force of black troops. ‘The bare sight of fifty thousand armed, and drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi,’ he predicted, ‘would end the rebellion at once.'”

–David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 431

“Before he implemented his matured political strategy he moved to adopt a measure which was an extension and logical consequence of his Emancipation Proclamation. He announced that those blacks freed by the proclamation would ‘be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places.’ In this way Lincoln planned for manpower difficulties to be significantly eased by tapping this new source of soldiers, ‘the great available and as yet unavailed of, force for the restoration of the Union.’ Arming southern blacks most effectively harmonized with the basic anaconda strategy because Lincoln saw that it worked ‘doubly, weakening the enemy and strengthening us,’ for it took ‘so much labor from the insurgent cause, and supplying the places which otherwise must be filled with so many white men.’ Lincoln correctly believed that the program weakened the enemy in another way: psychologically. He thought that ‘the bare sight of fifty thousand armed, and drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi, would end the rebellion at once.’ He did not believe that the rebellion could survive if such a black military force could ‘take shape, and grow, and thrive, in the South.'”

“In justifying his hesitancy to endorse the recruitment of black troops and to issue the order of retaliation, Lincoln (according to Douglass) ‘said that the country needed talking up to that point. He hesitated in regard to it when he felt that the country was not ready for it. He knew that the colored man throughout this country was a despised man, a hated man, and he knew that if he at first came out with such a proclamation, all the hatred which is poured on the head of the negro race would be visited on his Administration. He said that there was preparatory work needed, and that that preparatory work had been done.’ He described that ‘preparatory work’ accomplished by black troops: ‘Remember this, Mr. Douglass; remember that Milliken’s Bend, Port Hudson, and Fort Wagner are recent events; and that these were necessary to prepare the way for this very proclamation of mine.’ If he had issued it earlier, he said, ‘such was the state of public popular prejudice that an outcry would have been raised against the measure. It would be said ‘Ah! We thought it would come to this. White men are to be killed for negroes.’'”

–Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript By Chapters, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 2, Chapter 30 (PDF), pp. 3371-3372

NOTE TO READERS

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Private & confidential

Executive Mansion, Washington,

January 14, 1863.

Major General Dix

My dear Sir:

The proclamation has been issued. We were not succeeding—at best, were progressing too slowly—without it. Now, that we have it, and bear all the disadvantage of it, (as we do bear some in certain quarters) we must also take some benefit from it, if practicable. I therefore will thank you for your well considered opinion whether Fortress-Monroe, and York-Town, one or both, could not, in whole or in part, be garrisoned by colored troops, leaving the white forces now necessary at those places, to be employed elsewhere.

Yours very truly

A. LINCOLN

Letter to Ulysses Grant (July 13, 1863)

“My Dear General: I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgement for the almost inestimable service you have done the country.”

Contributing Editors for this page include Michael LoSasso and Michael Van Wambeke

Ranking

#118 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, July 13, 1863

Close Readings

Posted at YouTube by “Understanding Lincoln” participant Michael LoSasso, Fall 2013

Posted at YouTube by “Understanding Lincoln” participant Michael Van Wambeke

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–William Farina, Ulysses S. Grant, 1861-1864: His Rise from Obscurity to Military Genius (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2007), 213

How Historians Interpret

“While president Lincoln had been sorely disappointed that Meade did not pursue Lee after beating him at Gettysburg, his jubilation at Grant’s Vicksburg triumph was profuse and unequivocal. After announcing, ‘The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea,’ Lincoln then sent a new signal to Grant’s many previous critics and detractors on July 5 by proclaiming: ‘Grant is my man, and I am his the rest of the war.’ Then Lincoln sat down and wrote the following letter. . . Although Lincoln had agreed with the controversial decision to run the gauntlet, he—like Sherman and just about everyone else—had been alarmed when Grant cut loose from his supply line and moved against Jackson. Now Lincoln, like Sherman, found himself admitting to Grant that he had been mistaken. . . The most tangible evidence of Lincoln’s appreciation, though, was expressed by immediately promoting Grant to Major-General in the regular army on July 7 (backdated to July 4), the highest rank then available to bestow.”

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Washington, July 13, 1863.

My Dear General

I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgement for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do what you finally did — march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo-Pass expedition, and the like could succeed. When you got below, and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join Gen. Banks; and when you turned Northward, East of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgement that you were right and I was wrong.

Yours very truly

(Signed) A. Lincoln

Letter to Andrew Johnson (September 11, 1863)

“All Tennessee is now clear of armed insurrectionists. You need not to be reminded that it is the nick of time for re-inaugerating a loyal State government. Not a moment should be lost.”

Contributing Editors for this page include Brendan Birth

Ranking

#119 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, September 11, 1863

The Lincoln Log, September 11, 1863

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–Walter Brian Cisco, War Crimes Against Southern Civilians (Gretna, LA: Pelican, 2007), 46

How Historians Interpret

“Soon after his appointment by Lincoln as Tennessee’s governor, Johnson had allowed an election to go on as scheduled in Nashville for circuit court judge. There were two candidates: Unionist M. M. Brien and secessionist Turner S. Foster. Johnson was certain that citizens voting in secret and not intimidated by disunionists would put the loyal man on the bench. When Foster won by a large margin, Johnson was furious, vowing that there would be no more elections to fill local offices. Judge Foster was arrested, charged with treason, and confined in the penitentiary. A year later Abraham Lincoln gave the governor a few pointers on ‘reinaugurating a loyal State government.’ advice that by now Johnson no longer needed. ‘Let the reconstruction be the work of such men only as can be trusted for the Union,’ wrote Lincoln. ‘Exclude all others.’ Both men well understood that if free elections were permitted, the people would again choose to be free of the United States.”

“During the early months of 1863, federal forces expanded their grip on central Tennessee, but the eastern section of the state—and Johnson’s hometown—remained in Confederate control. On June 1 Governor Harris, whose state government in rebellion had been driven from one town to another, attempted to nominate candidates for the Confederate congress. The convention met, only to be disrupted by the advance of federal forces. For Johnson, political matters went much better. A Unionist convention meeting in Nashville on July 1 passed a resolution approving Lincoln’s appointment of Johnson as military governor and praised the latter’s administration. The delegates also voided all actions of the Harris convention. Unionists asked Johnson to issue writs of election for the first week of August, but he declined, preferring to wait until guerrillas had been driven from east Tennessee so the entire state could participate in an election. In mid-August Major General Ambrose E. Burnside marched his army from Kentucky into east Tennessee. Simultaneously, Rosecrans advanced on General Braxton Bragg at Chattanooga, forcing the latter to draw reserves from Burnside’s line of march. On September 2, 1863, Burnside occupied Knoxville, and on the 9th, Rosecrans forced Bragg out of Chattanooga and into northern Georgia. In east Tennessee the mountaineers gave three cheers for the Union and three more for Andy Johnson. For them, the day of reconciliation had come. Lincoln reacted quickly to the good news and on September 11 telegraphed Johnson. . .”

–Chester G. Hearn, The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2000), 28

Close Readings

Brendan Birth, “Lincoln’s Letter to Andrew Johnson,” History 288, Spring 2015

NOTE TO READERS

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Private

Executive Mansion, Washington, September 11, 1863.

Hon. Andrew Johnson

My dear Sir:

All Tennessee is now clear of armed insurrectionists. You need not to be reminded that it is the nick of time for re-inaugerating a loyal State government. Not a moment should be lost. You, and the co-operating friends there, can better judge of the ways and means, than can be judged by any here. I only offer a few suggestions. The re-inaugeration must not be such as to give control of the State, and it’s representation in Congress, to the enemies of the Union, driving it’s friends there into political exile. The whole struggle for Tennessee will have been profitless to both State and Nation, if it so ends that Gov. Johnson is put down, and Gov. Harris is put up. It must not be so. You must have it otherwise. Let the reconstruction be the work of such men only as can be trusted for the Union. Exclude all others, and trust that your government, so organized, will be recognized here, as being the one of republican form, to be guarranteed to the state, and to be protected against invasion and domestic violence.

It is something on the question of time, to remember that it can not be known who is next to occupy the position I now hold, nor what he will do. I see that you have declared in favor of emancipation in Tennessee, for which, may God bless you. Get emancipation into your new State government—Constitution—and there will be no such word as fail for your case.The raising of colored troops I think will greatly help every way.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN

Letter to William Sherman (December 26, 1864)

“Many, many, thanks for your Christmas-gift—the capture of Savannah. When you were about leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was anxious, if not fearful; but feeling that you were the better judge, and remembering that ‘nothing risked, nothing gained’ I did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honor is all yours; for I believe none of us went farther than to acquiesce.”

Contributing Editors for this page include Andrew Villwock and Rhonda Webb

Ranking

#120 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, December 26, 1864

The Lincoln Log, December 26, 1864

Close Readings

Posted at YouTube by “Understanding Lincoln” participant Andrew Villwock, Fall 2013

Posted at YouTube by “Understanding Lincoln” participant Rhonda Webb, Fall 2013

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