Tag: Military Affairs Page 1 of 2

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 Ulysses S Grant (January 19, 1865)

On June 10, 2013

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

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#24 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

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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

Presidential Proclamation (April 15, 1861)

“Whereas, the laws of the United States have been for some time past and now are opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law: now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, in virtueof the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, tho militia of the several States of the Union to the aggregate number of 75,000, in order to suppress said combinations and to cause the laws to be duly executed.”

Contributing Editors for this page include Daniel Caudle

Ranking

#41 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

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HD Daily Report, April 15, 1861

The Lincoln Log, April 15, 1861

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Posted at YouTube by Understanding Lincoln participant Daniel Caudle, 2016

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How Historians Interpret

“The cabinet also considered how large a militia force to call up. Some favored 50,000; Seward and others recommended double that number. Lincoln split the difference and decided to ask the states to provide 75,000 men for three months’ service, which the Militia Act of 1795 authorized. Once that was determined, action was swift: the president drafted a proclamation, Cameron calculated the quotas for each state, Nicolay had the document copied, and Seward readied it to distribute to the press in time for Monday’s papers. That afternoon, Lincoln went for a carriage ride with his sons and Nicolay.”

–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), 2420.

“Lincoln issued that proclamation under the Militia Act of 1795. The proclamation announced the purpose of executing the laws of the United States and securing the integrity of republican government. In accordance with the terms of the Militia Act, Lincoln stated that combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law, obstructed enforcement of the laws in the seven seceded states. In virtue of power vested in the executive by the Constitution and the laws, he called forth 75,000 state militia to suppress the unlawful combinations, commanding the persons who composed them to disperse and retire peaceably within twenty days. Lincoln further issued a statement of war aims addressed to the country as a whole. He declared: ‘I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union, and the perpetuity of popular government; and to redress wrongs already long enough endured.’”

— Herman Belz, “Lincoln’s Construction of the Executive Power in the Secession Crisis,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Assocation 27, no. 1 (2006), 13-38.

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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A Proclamation by the President of the United States.

Whereas, the laws of the United States have been for some time past and now are opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law: now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, tho militia of the several States of the Union to the aggregate number of 75,000, in order to suppress said combinations and to cause the laws to be duly executed.

The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the State authorities through the War Department. I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and existence of our national Union, and the perpetuity of popular government, and to redress wrongs already long enough endured. I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth, will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event the utmost care will be observed, consistently with tho objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of, or interference with, property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens of any part of the country; and I hereby command the persons composing the combinations aforesaid, to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes, within twenty days from this date.

Deeming that the present condition of public affairs presents an extraordinary occasion, I do hereby, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution, convene both houses of Congress. The Senators and Representatives are, therefore, summoned to assemble at their respective Chambers at twelve o’clock, noon, on Thursday, the fourth day of July next, then and there to consider and determine such measures as, in their wisdom, the public safety and interest may seem to demand.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this fifteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the independence of tho United States the eighty-fifth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President.
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

Presidential Proclamation (April 19, 1861)

“Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States … have further deemed it advisable to set on foot a blockade of the ports within the States aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of the United States, and of the law of Nations, in such case provided.”

Ranking

#42 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

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How Historians Interpret

“It is not surprising that many observers at home and abroad should have regarded Lincoln as a man patently out of his depth in a crisis of such magnitude. To the London Times, for instance, he seemed weak, dilatory, and destined to be more of a follower than a leader in the conduct of the government. Yet the very confusion of circumstances, the very uniqueness and urgency of the problems confronting him, amounted to a slate wiped clean, offering an extraordinary opportunity for the exercise of leadership. How did Lincoln respond? Decisively, beyond question. Within the first three weeks following the attack on Fort Sumter: He issued proclamations of a blockade, dated April 19 and 27, that were tantamount to declaring the existence of a state of civil war.”

— Don E. Fehrenbacher, “Lincoln’s Wartime Leadership: The first Hundred Days,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 9, no. 1 (1987), 2-18.

“While these actions may have bent the Constitution slightly, more serious extraconstitutional steps were also taken in the ten weeks between the bombardment of Sumter and the convening of Congress in July. Lincoln acted unilaterally in the belief that his emergency measures would be endorsed retrospectively by the House and Senate and thus made constitutional. On April 19, he declared his intention to blockade ports in the seven seceded states; a week later he extended it to cover Virginia and North Carolina. This he justified as a response to the Confederacy’s announcement on April 17 that it would issue letters of marque, authorizing privateers to seize Union shipping. In the momentous cabinet session of April 14, a majority agreed with Gideon Welles, who maintained that a blockade was more appropriate for a war between two nations rather than for a rebellion. Better to simply close the ports in the seceded states, argued the navy secretary, who understandably feared that the Union fleet was too small and antiquated to enforce a blockade. Bates believed that a blockade was ‘an act of war, which a nation cannot wage against itself’ but that closing ports was ‘altogether different.’ Seward, however, countered that closing Southern ports might provoke foreign nations to declare war. Lincoln at first sided with Welles, but Seward took him ‘off to ride, explained his own view,’ and the president gave in. The following day he told the cabinet and ‘that we could not afford to have two wars on our hands at once’ and therefore he would declare a blockade.”

— 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 23 (PDF), 2459-2460.

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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April 19, 1861

By the President of the United States of America:

A Proclamation.

Whereas an insurrection against the Government of the United States has broken out in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and the laws of the United States for the collection of the revenue cannot be effectually executed therein conformably to that provision of the Constitution which requires duties to be uniform throughout the United States:

And whereas a combination of persons engaged in such insurrection, have threatened to grant pretended letters of marque to authorize the bearers thereof to commit assaults on the lives, vessels, and property of good citizens of the country lawfully engaged in commerce on the high seas, and in waters of the United States: And whereas an Executive Proclamation has been already issued, requiring the persons engaged in these disorderly proceedings to desist therefrom, calling out a militia force for the purpose of repressing the same, and convening Congress in extraordinary session, to deliberate and determine thereon:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, with a view to the same purposes before mentioned, and to the protection of the public peace, and the lives and property of quiet and orderly citizens pursuing their lawful occupations, until Congress shall have assembled and deliberated on the said unlawful proceedings, or until the same shall have ceased, have further deemed it advisable to set on foot a blockade of the ports within the States aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of the United States, and of the law of Nations, in such case provided. For this purpose a competent force will be posted so as to prevent entrance and exit of vessels from the ports aforesaid. If, therefore, with a view to violate such blockade, a vessel shall approach, or shall attempt to leave either of the said ports, she will be duly warned by the Commander of one of the blockading vessels, who will endorse on her register the fact and date of such warning, and if the same vessel shall again attempt to enter or leave the blockaded port, she will be captured and sent to the nearest convenient port, for such proceedings against her and her cargo as prize, as may be deemed advisable.

And I hereby proclaim and declare that if any person, under the pretended authority of the said States, or under any other pretense, shall molest a vessel of the United States, or the persons or cargo on board of her, such person will be held amenable to the laws of the United States for the prevention and punishment of piracy.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this nineteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.

[L.S.]

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State

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)

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HD Daily Report, October 13, 1862

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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 Orville Browning (September 22, 1861)

“That you should object to my adhering to a law, which you had assisted in making, and presenting to me, less than a month before, is odd enough. But this is a very small part.”

Contributing Editors for this page include Ana Kean and Leah Miller

Ranking

#47 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

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How Historians Interpret

Wrong in principle, Frémont ’s proclamation was ruinous in practice. ‘No doubt the thing was popular in some quarters,’ Lincoln told Browning, ‘and would have been more so if it had been a general declaration of emancipation. The Kentucky Legislature would not budge till that proclamation was modified; and Gen. Anderson telegraphed me that on the news of Gen. Frémont having actually issued deeds of manumission, a whole company of our Volunteers threw down their arms and disbanded. I was so assured, as to think it probable, that the very arms we had furnished Kentucky would be turned against us.’ The president hastened to add that Browning ‘must not understand I took my course on the proclamation because of Kentucky. I took the same ground in a private letter to General Frémont before I heard from Kentucky.'”

—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. 2599-2600.

“Yet when Lincoln became president, he assured Southerners that he had no intention of interfering with slavery in their states. When the war broke out, he reassured loyal slaveholders on this score, and revoked orders by Union generals emancipating the slaves of Confederates in Missouri and in the South Atlantic states. This was a war for Union, not for liberty, said Lincoln over and over again—to Greeley in August 1862, for example: ‘If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it.’ In a letter to his old friend Senator Orville Browning of Illinois on September 22, 1861—ironically, exactly one year before issuing the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation—Lincoln rebuked Browning for his support of General John C. Frémont’s order purporting to free the slaves of Confederates in Missouri. ‘You speak of it as being the only means of saving the government. On the contrary it is itself the surrender of government.’ If left standing, it would drive the border slave states into the Confederacy. ‘These all against us, and the job on our hands is too large for us. We would as well consent to separation at once, including the surrender of this capitol.’ To keep the border states—as well as Northern Democrats—in the coalition fighting to suppress the rebellion, Lincoln continued to resist antislavery pressures for an emancipation policy well into the second year of the war.”

—James M. McPherson, “The Hedgehog and the Foxes,” The Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 12, 1991.

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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Private & confidential.

Executive Mansion, Washington

Sept 22d 1861.

My dear Sir,

Yours of the 17th is just received; and coming from you, I confess it astonishes me. That you should object to my adhering to a law, which you had assisted in making, and presenting to me, less than a month before, is odd enough. But this is a very small part. Genl. Fremont’s proclamation, as to confiscation of property, and the liberation of slaves, is purely political, and not within the range of military law, or necessity. If a commanding General finds a necessity to seize the farm of a private owner, for a pasture, an encampment, or a fortification, he has the right to do so, and to so hold it, as long as the necessity lasts; and this is within military law, because within military necessity. But to say the farm shall no longer belong to the owner, or his heirs forever; and this as well when the farm is not needed for military purposes as when it is, is purely political, without the savor of military law about it. And the same is true of slaves. If the General needs them, he can seize them, and use them; but when the need is past, it is not for him to fix their permanent future condition. That must be settled according to laws made by law-makers, and not by military proclamations. The proclamation in the point in question, is simply “dictatorship.” It assumes that the general may do anything he pleases—confiscate the lands and free the slaves of loyal people, as well as of disloyal ones. And going the whole figure I have no doubt would be more popular with some thoughtless people, than that which has been done! But I cannot assume this reckless position; nor allow others to assume it on my responsibility. You speak of it as being the only means of saving the government. On the contrary it is itself the surrender of the government. Can it be pretended that it is any longer the government of the U.S.—any government of Constitution and laws,—wherein a General, or a President, may make permanent rules of property by proclamation?

I do not say Congress might not with propriety pass a law, on the point, just such as General Fremont proclaimed. I do not say I might not, as a member of Congress, vote for it. What I object to, is, that I as President, shall expressly or impliedly seize and exercise the permanent legislative functions of the government.

So much as to principle. Now as to policy. No doubt the thing was popular in some quarters, and would have been more so if it had been a general declaration of emancipation. The Kentucky Legislature would not budge till that proclamation was modified; and Gen. Anderson telegraphed me that on the news of Gen. Fremont having actually issued deeds of manumission, a whole company of our Volunteers threw down their arms and disbanded. I was so assured, as to think it probable, that the very arms we had furnished Kentucky would be turned against us. I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we can not hold Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland. These all against us, and the job on our hands is too large for us. We would as well consent to separation at once, including the surrender of this capitol. On the contrary, if you will give up your restlessness for new positions, and back me manfully on the grounds upon which you and other kind friends gave me the election, and have approved in my public documents, we shall go through triumphantly.

You must not understand I took my course on the proclamation because of Kentucky. I took the same ground in a private letter to General Fremont before I heard from Kentucky.

You think I am inconsistent because I did not also forbid Gen. Fremont to shoot men under the proclamation. I understand that part to be within military law; but I also think, and so privately wrote Gen. Fremont, that it is impolitic in this, that our adversaries have the power, and will certainly exercise it, to shoot as many of our men as we shoot of theirs. I did not say this in the public letter, because it is a subject I prefer not to discuss in the hearing of our enemies.

There has been no thought of removing Gen. Fremont on any ground connected with his proclamation; and if there has been any wish for his removal on any ground, our mutual friend Sam. Glover can probably tell you what it was. I hope no real necessity for it exists on any ground.

Suppose you write to Hurlbut and get him to resign.

Your friend 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

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#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.

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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

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

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#57 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

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On This Date

HD Daily Report, 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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On This Date

HD Daily Report, November 7, 1861

The Lincoln Log, November 7, 1861

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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

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#59 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

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On This Date

HD Daily Report, January 27, 1862

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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.

Presidential Proclamation (May 19, 1862)

“I, Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States, proclaim and declare, that the government of the United States, had no knowledge, information, or belief, of an intention on the part of General Hunter to issue such a proclamation;”

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#65 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

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“At first, Lincoln hesitated to overrule Hunter, lest European powers conclude that the North was simply waging a war of conquest which civilized nations might feel compelled to halt by intervening. But on May 19, he formally revoked Hunter’s order, surprising many Republican allies. He averred that ‘the government of the United States, had no knowledge, information, or belief, of an intention on the part of General Hunter to issue such a proclamation,’ adding that ‘neither General Hunter, nor any other commander, or person, has been authorized by the Government of the United States, to make proclamations declaring the slaves of any State free; and that the supposed proclamation, now in question, whether genuine or false, is altogether void, so far as respects such declaration.’ Having taken away with one hand, Lincoln then gave with the other. Portentously he hinted that soon he might issue a proclamation like Hunter’s: ‘I further make know that whether it be competent for me, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, to declare the Slaves of any state or states, free, and whether at any time, in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintainance of the government, to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I can not feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field. These are totally different questions from those of police regulations in armies and camps.’ When a friend reminded the president that he had allowed Halleck’s notorious order of the previous November (forbidding slaves to enter Union lines) to stand, Lincoln replied: ‘D—n General order No 3.’ Lincoln used the occasion to warn Border State senators and congressmen that they should approve the compensated emancipation plan he had submitted to Congress two months earlier. In his proclamation revoking Hunter’s order, he issued an earnest appeal… The appeal fell on deaf ears.”

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 27 (PDF), 2962-2964

“Lincoln’s apparent conservatism on the slavery issue drew strong criticism from radicals as early as the fall of 1861. His revocation of Fremont’s edict proclaiming emancipation in Missouri provoked a storm of recrimination that was renewed in May 1862 when he revoked a similar order issued by General David Hunter for South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. In a letter to another senator, Wade sneered that nothing better could be expected from a man of Southern antecedents and ‘poor white trash’ at that. Frederick Douglass, the leading black abolitionist, declared in his monthly magazine that Lincoln had become the ‘miserable tool of traitors and rebels,’ and had shown himself to be ‘a genuine representative of American prejudice and negro hatred.’”

— Don E. Fehrenbacher, “The Anti-Lincoln Tradition,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 4, no. 1 (1982): 6-28.

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May 19, 1862

By the President of The United States of America.

A Proclamation.

Whereas there appears in the public prints, what purports to be a proclamation, of Major General Hunter, in the words and figures following, towit:

Headquarters Department of the South,

Hilton Head, S.C., May 9, 1862.

General Orders No. 11.—The three States of Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, comprising the military department of the south, having deliberately declared themselves no longer under the protection of the United States of America, and having taken up arms against the said United States, it becomes a military necessity to declare them under martial law. This was accordingly done on the 25th day of April, 1862. Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible; the persons in these three States—Georgia, Florida and South Carolina—heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared forever free. DAVID HUNTER,

(Official) Major General Commanding.

ED. W. SMITH, Acting Assistant Adjutant General.

And whereas the same is producing some excitement, and misunderstanding: therefore

I, Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States, proclaim and declare, that the government of the United States, had no knowledge, information, or belief, of an intention on the part of General Hunter to issue such a proclamation; nor has it yet, any authentic information that the document is genuine. And further, that neither General Hunter, nor any other commander, or person, has been authorized by the Government of the United States, to make proclamations declaring the slaves of any State free; and that the supposed proclamation, now in question, whether genuine or false, is altogether void, so far as respects such declaration.

I further make known that whether it be competent for me, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, to declare the Slaves of any state or states, free, and whether at any time, in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintainance of the government, to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I can not feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field. These are totally different questions from those of police regulations in armies and camps.

On the sixth day of March last, by a special message, I recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint resolution to be substantially as follows:

Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system.

The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic, definite, and solemn proposal of the nation to the States and people most immediately interested in the subject matter. To the people of those states I now earnestly appeal. I do not argue. I beseech you to make the arguments for yourselves. You can not if you would, be blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partizan politics. This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any. It acts not the pharisee. The change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done, by one effort, in all past time, as, in the providence of God, it is now your high previlege to do. May the vast future not have to lament that you have neglected it.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

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

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HD Daily Report, November 10, 1862

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“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

Speech at Great Central Sanitary Fair (June 16, 1864)

“War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible.”

Contributing Editors for this page include Susan Johnson

Ranking

#73 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, June 16, 1864

The Lincoln Log, June 16, 1864

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Posted at YouTube by “Understanding Lincoln” participant Susan Johnson, November 12, 2013 with transcript.

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How Historians Interpret

“Yet almost immediately, Lincoln found himself presiding over one of the largest, costliest, and deadliest wars in history. ‘War at the best, is terrible,’ he conceded to an audience in Philadelphia in 1864, ‘and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible.’ Though Lincoln had learned that war was unrelenting, brutal, destructive, and deadly, he did not shrink from it. Nor did he shrink from the task of maintaining support for it.”

— Harold Holzer and Norton Garfinkle, A Just and Generous Nation: Abraham Lincoln and the Fight for American Opportunity (New York: Basic Books, 2015), 135.

“When Lincoln made him commander of the whole war effort, leadership of the Western Department fell to General Sherman, whose bouts of mania and depression had nearly derailed his career early in the war, but who proved himself skillful and ruthless. All three men agreed that only brutal aggression could subdue the rebellion. By June 16, 1864, the war had gone on for more than three years, and Lincoln acknowledged its toll. ‘War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible.”

— Joshua Wolf Shenk, Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled his Greatness (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,2005), 203.

“Through 1864 Lincoln continued to voice the war’s primary purpose. Speaking in June at the Great Central Sanitary Fair in Philadelphia, where three years earlier he had seen the Union’s central idea to be liberty, he now declared, “This war has taken three years; it was begun or accepted upon the line of restoring the national authority over the whole national domain….”

— James A. Rawley, “The Nationalism of Abraham Lincoln Revisited,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 22, no. 1 (2001): 33-48.

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June 16, 1864

I suppose that this toast was intended to open the way for me to say something. [Laughter.] War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible. It has deranged business, totally in many localities, and partially in all localities. It has destroyed property, and ruined homes; it has produced a national debt and taxation unprecedented, at least in this country. It has carried mourning to almost every home, until it can almost be said that the “heavens are hung in black.” Yet it continues, and several relieving coincidents [coincidences] have accompanied it from the very beginning, which have not been known, as I understood [understand], or have any knowledge of, in any former wars in the history of the world. The Sanitary Commission, with all its benevolent labors, the Christian commission, with all its Christian and benevolent labors, and the various places, arrangements, so to speak, and institutions, have contributed to the comfort and relief of the soldiers. You have two of these places in this city—the Cooper-Shop and Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloons. [Great applause and cheers.] And lastly, these fairs, which, I believe, began only in last August, if I mistake not, in Chicago; then at Boston, at Cincinnati, Brooklyn, New York, at Baltimore, and those at present held at St. Louis, Pittsburg, and Philadelphia. The motive and object that lie at the bottom of all these are most worthy; for, say what you will, after all the most is due to the soldier, who takes his life in his hands and goes to fight the battles of his country. [Cheers.] In what is contributed to his comfort when he passes to and fro [from city to city], and in what is contributed to him when he is sick and wounded, in whatever shape it comes, whether from the fair and tender hand of woman, or from any other source, is much, very much; but, I think there is still that which has as much value to him [in the continual reminders he sees in the newspapers, that while he is absent he is yet remembered by the loved ones at home—he is not forgotten. [Cheers.] Another view of these various institutions is worthy of consideration, I think; they are voluntary contributions, given freely, zealously, and earnestly, on top of all the disturbances of business, [of all the disorders,] the taxation and burdens that the war has imposed upon us, giving proof that the national resources are not at all exhausted, [cheers;] that the national spirit of patriotism is even [firmer and] stronger than at the commencement of the rebellion [war].

It is a pertinent question often asked in the mind privately, and from one to the other, when is the war to end? Surely I feel as deep [great] an interest in this question as any other can, but I do not wish to name a day, or month, or a year when it is to end. I do not wish to run any risk of seeing the time come, without our being ready for the end, and for fear of disappointment, because the time had come and not the end. [We accepted this war; we did not begin it.] We accepted this war for an object, a worthy object, and the war will end when that object is attained. Under God, I hope it never will until that time. [Great cheering.] Speaking of the present campaign, General Grant is reported to have said, I am going through on this line if it takes all summer. [Cheers.] This war has taken three years; it was begun or accepted upon the line of restoring the national authority over the whole national domain, and for the American people, as far as my knowledge enables me to speak, I say we are going through on this line if it takes three years more. [Cheers.] My friends, I did not know but that I might be called upon to say a few words before I got away from here, but I did not know it was coming just here. [Laughter.] I have never been in the habit of making predictions in regard to the war, but I am almost tempted to make one. [(Do it—do it!)]—If I were to hazard it, it is this: That Grant is this evening, with General Meade and General Hancock, of Pennsylvania, and the brave officers and soldiers with him, in a position from whence he will never be dislodged until Richmond is taken [loud cheering], and I have but one single proposition to put now, and, perhaps, I can best put it in form of an interrogative [interragatory]. If I shall discover that General Grant and the noble officers and men under him can be greatly facilitated in their work by a sudden pouring forward [forth] of men and assistance, will you give them to me? [Cries of “yes.”] Then, I say, stand ready, for I am watching for the chance. [Laughter and cheers.] I thank you, gentlemen.

Letter to David Hunter (December 31, 1861)

“Yours of the 23rd. is received; and I am constrained to say it is difficult to answer so ugly a letter in good temper.”

Contributing Editors for this page include Thomas Warf

Ranking

#84 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, December 31, 1861

The Lincoln Log, December 31, 1861

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Close Readings

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

How Historians Interpret

“Other squabbles among generals exasperated Lincoln. David Hunter and John G. Foster quarreled about which of them would control a part of Foster’s corps that happened to be situated in Hunter’s department. John M. Schofield threatened to resign his command in Missouri because Samuel R. Curtis would not authorize him to undertake offensive action. Curtis in turn objected to orders transferring some of his troops to the Vicksburg front. To Lincoln’s relief, Grant conducted the Vicksburg campaign without grumbling.”

–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), 3291-3292.

“Nine months into his term the new president, whose letters would prove to be full of perhaps surprisingly explicit moral sagacity, would give some advice to General David Hunter that could have been directed to his own lowly status and alleged lack of preparation for the highest office, and taken as an indication of Lincoln’s own moral self-shaping. Hunter, a man whom Lincoln knew, had been sending him a ‘flood of grumbling’ letters and had complained about being in command of ‘only 3000.’ Lincoln, preparing his response, first insisted that he was Hunter’s friend and therefore could ‘dare to make a suggestion.’ Then he told Hunter – in a December 31, 1861 letter – that his grumbling about the smallness of his role was the best way to ruin himself. Lincoln in aid of his point then called up from his memory of English poetry a line from Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man: ‘Act well your part there all the honor lies.’”

–William Lee Miller, President Lincoln (New York: Knopf, 2008).

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Executive Mansion, Washington,

Dec. 31, 1861.

Major General Hunter.

Dear Sir:

Yours of the 23rd. is received; and I am constrained to say it is difficult to answer so ugly a letter in good temper. I am, as you intimate, losing much of the great confidence I placed in you, not from any act or omission of yours touching the public service, up to the time you were sent to Leavenworth, but from the flood of grumbling despatches and letters I have seen from you since. I knew you were being ordered to Leavenworth at the time it was done; and I aver that with as tender a regard for your honor and your sensibilities as I had for my own, it never occurred to me that you were being “humiliated, insulted and disgraced”; nor have I, up to this day, heard an intimation that you have been wronged, coming from any one but yourself. No one has blamed you for the retrograde movement from Springfield, nor for the information you gave Gen. Cameron; and this you could readily understand, if it were not for your unwarranted assumption that the ordering you to Leavenworth must necessarily have been done as a punishment for some fault. I thought then, and think yet, the position assigned to you is as respo[n]sible, and as honorable, as that assigned to Buell. I know that Gen. McClellan expected more important results from it. My impression is that at the time you were assigned to the new Western Department, it had not been determined to re-place Gen. Sherman in Kentucky; but of this I am not certain, because the idea that a command in Kentucky was very desireable, and one in the farther West, very undesireable, had never occurred to me. You constantly speak of being placed in command of only 3000. Now tell me, is not this mere impatience? Have you not known all the while that you are to command four or five times that many?

I have been, and am sincerely your friend; and if, as such, I dare to make a suggestion, I would say you are adopting the best possible way to ruin yourself. “Act well your part, there all the honor lies.” He who does something at the head of one Regiment, will eclipse him who does nothing at the head of a hundred.

Your friend as ever,

A. LINCOLN

Letter to George Meade (July 14, 1863)

“Again, my dear general, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee’s escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely.”

Contributing Editors for this page include Susan Segal

Ranking

#87 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, July 14, 1863

Close Readings

Posted at YouTube by “Understanding Lincoln” participant, Susan Segal, October 18, 2013

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How Historians Interpret

“In one of the harshest passages Lincoln ever penned, he told Meade how much his failure to attack Lee would hurt the Union cause: “I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee’s escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely. If you could not safely attack Lee last monday, how can you possibly do so South of the river, when you can take with you very few more than two thirds of the force you then had in hand? It would be unreasonable to expect, and I do not expect you can now effect much. Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasureably because of it.” This stinging letter Lincoln filed away with the endorsement: “To Gen. Meade, never sent, or signed.” But he did tell the general, “The fruit seemed so ripe, so ready for plucking, that it was very hard to lose it.”

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), 3353.

“Lee’s escape made the president frantic, because he believed that Lee had been within Meade’s ‘easy grasp’ and to have ‘closed upon him would,’ he stated, ‘in connection with our late successes, have ended the war.’ With the Confederates’ back to the river, Lincoln’s expected that Lee’s army could have been destroyed and that ‘such destruction was perfectly easy.’ The president believed that victory was ‘certain’ and confided to his secretary: ‘We had them in our grasp. We had only to stretch forth our hands and they were ours.’”

Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones, How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991), 425.

“Like his committee counterparts, Lincoln did not take defeat or missed opportunity lightly. He, too, was convinced that George Meade had missed the opportunity of the war in allowing Lee’s escape after Gettysburg. His anger and grief were obvious to many who saw him in the aftermath of that battle. At a July [14], 1863, cabinet meeting, he complained bitterly to Gideon Welles, ‘there is bad faith somewhere. Meade has been pressed and urged, but only one of his generals was for an immediate attack…. What does it mean, Mr. Welles? Great God! What does it mean.’”

Bruce Tap, “Amateurs at War: Abraham Lincoln and the Committee on the Conduct of the War,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 23, no. 2 (2002): 1-18.

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Executive Mansion, Washington

July 14, 1863

Major General Meade

I have just seen your despatch to Gen. Halleck, asking to be relieved of your command, because of a supposed censure of mine. I am very—very—grateful to you for the magnificent success you gave the cause of the country at Gettysburg; and I am sorry now to be the author of the slightest pain to you. But I was in such deep distress myself that I could not restrain some expression of it. I had been oppressed nearly ever since the battles at Gettysburg, by what appeared to be evidences that yourself, and Gen. Couch, and Gen. Smith, were not seeking a collision with the enemy, but were trying to get him across the river without another battle. What these evidences were, if you please, I hope to tell you at some time, when we shall both feel better. The case, summarily stated is this. You fought and beat the enemy at Gettysburg; and, of course, to say the least, his loss was as great as yours. He retreated; and you did not, as it seemed to me, pressingly pursue him; but a flood in the river detained him, till, by slow degrees, you were again upon him. You had at least twenty thousand veteran troops directly with you, and as many more raw ones within supporting distance, all in addition to those who fought with you at Gettysburg; while it was not possible that he had received a single recruit; and yet you stood and let the flood run down, bridges be built, and the enemy move away at his leisure, without attacking him. And Couch and Smith! The latter left Carlisle in time, upon all ordinary calculation, to have aided you in the last battle at Gettysburg; but he did not arrive. At the end of more than ten days, I believe twelve, under constant urging, he reached Hagerstown from Carlisle, which is not an inch over fifty five miles, if so much. And Couch’s movement was very little different.

Again, my dear general, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee’s escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely. If you could not safely attack Lee last monday, how can you possibly do so South of the river, when you can take with you very few more than two thirds of the force you then had in hand? It would be unreasonable to expect, and I do not expect you can now effect much. Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasureably because of it.

I beg you will not consider this a prossecution, or persecution of yourself. As you had learned that I was dissatisfied, I have thought it best to kindly tell you why.

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.

NOTE TO READERS

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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 Arnold Fischel (December 14, 1861)

“I find that there are several particulars in which the present law in regard to Chaplains is supposed to be deficient, all of which I now design presenting to the appropriate Committee of Congress. I shall try to have a new law broad enough to cover what is desired by you in behalf of the Israelites.”

Contributing Editors for this page include Jonas Sherr

Ranking

#111 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, December 14, 1861

The Lincoln Log, December 14, 1861

Close Readings

Jonas Sherr, “Understanding Lincoln” blog post (via Quora), September 15, 2013

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–Gary Phillip Zola, We Called Him Rabbi Abraham: Lincoln and American Jewry, a Documentary History (Illinois: SIU Press, 2014) 82-86

How Historians Interpret

“On December 6, 1861, the BODAI [Board of Delegates of the American Israelites] prepared a beautiful ‘Memorial,’ penned with a fair hand, addressed to the Senate and the House of Representatives. Presumably, Rabbi Fischel would carry this ‘Memorial’ to the nation’s capital. The tone of the remonstrance was firm. The document emphasized that the congressional act concerning military chaplains excluded from ‘the Office of Chaplain in the service of the United States ‘regular ordained ministers’ of the Jewish faith.’ The writers insisted that the current law was ‘prejudicial discrimination against a particular class of citizens, on account of their religious belief.’ Moreover, the law established a ‘religious test,’ which manifestly contravened the protections afforded the nation’s citizens by the Constitution. . .Despite reports to the contrary, President Lincoln agreed to see Rabbi Fischel on December 11, 1861. From Fischel’s perspective, the meeting went quite well. Lincoln even asked him to return the next day to discuss the matter further. . .On December 15, 1861, Rabbi Fischel received a short but gratifying letter from Abraham Lincoln. He sat down on the spot and penned a buoyant letter to Henry I. Hart (1816-1863), president of the BODAI. Fischel wanted Hart and the rest of the BODAI to read Lincoln’s words for themselves, so he quoted the entire text of Lincoln’s letter verbatim. Had the rabbi not done so, we might never have been able to document Lincoln’s personal involvement in the controversy, since the original of Lincoln’s note appears to have been lost. . .Lincoln kept his word. Five months later, Congress passed new legislation that would enable ministers of the Jewish faith to serve as chaplains in the U.S. military.”

“Hoping to create a test case based strictly on a chaplain’s religion and not his lack of ordination [as in the case of Michael Allen, an un-ordained Jewish minister who was fired from his chaplaincy post in 1861], Colonel Max Friedman and the officers of Cameron’s Dragoons then elected an ordained rabbi, the Reverend Arnold Fischel of New York’s Congregation Shearith Israel, to serve as regimental chaplain-designate. When Fischel, a Dutch immigrant, applied for certification as chaplain, the secretary of war, none other than the Simon Cameron for whom the regiment was named, complied with the law and rejected his application. The rejection of Fischel finally stimulated American Jewry to action. The American Jewish press let its readers know that Congress had limited the chaplaincy to Christians and argued for equal treatment for Judaism before the law. This initiative irritated a handful of Christian organizations, including the YMCA, which resolved to lobby Congress against the appointment of Jewish chaplains. To counter their efforts, the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, one of the earliest Jewish communal defense agencies, recruited Reverend Fischel to live in Washington, minister to wounded Jewish soldiers in that city’s military hospitals and lobby President Abraham Lincoln to reverse the chaplaincy law. . . Armed with letters of introduction from Jewish and non-Jewish political leaders, Fischel met on December 11, 1861 with President Lincoln to press the case for Jewish chaplains. . . According to Fischel, Lincoln asked several questions about the chaplaincy issue, ‘fully admitted the justice of my remarks. . .and agreed that something ought to be done to meet this case.’ Lincoln promised Fischel that he would submit a new law to Congress ‘broad enough to cover what is desired by you in behalf of the Israelites.'”

–Michael Felberg, editor, Blessings of Freedom: Chapters in American Jewish History (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav Publishing House, 2002), 95

NOTE TO READERS

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Executive Mansion,

December 14, 1861.

Rev. Dr. A. Fischel

My dear Sir:

I find that there are several particulars in which the present law in regard to Chaplains is supposed to be deficient, all of which I now design presenting to the appropriate Committee of Congress. I shall try to have a new law broad enough to cover what is desired by you in behalf of the Israelites.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

Letter to Cuthbert Bullitt (July 28, 1862)

“If they will not do this, if they prefer to hazard all for the sake of destroying the government, it is for them to consider whether it is probable I will surrender the government to save them from losing all. If they decline what I suggest, you scarcely need to ask what I will do. What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is? Or, would you prosecute it in future, with elder-stalk squirts, charged with rose water? Would you deal lighter blows rather than heavier ones? Would you give up the contest, leaving any available means unapplied.”

Ranking

#112 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, July 28, 1862

The Lincoln Log, July 28, 1862

Custom Map

–Elizabeth Brown Pryor, “Brief Encounter: A New York Cavalryman’s Striking Conversation with Abraham Lincoln,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 30.2 (2009)

How Historians Interpret

“Lincoln had no intention of feeding the robust Washington rumor mill by letting his plan out piecemeal. Rather he was looking to shape a platform that could be widely accepted in the spirit of national interest. To consolidate support he often floated positions that rose above parochialism, promoting a larger ideal that could be embraced by everyone. Sometimes he did it through his famous cornpone parables, and sometimes by directly challenging his interlocutors to view a situation from his perspective. He used this latter ploy a few days before he encountered Lucien Waters. When Cuthbert Bullitt, the U.S. marshal for Louisiana, passed on complaints that the administration’s contraband policies were disadvantaging Unionist slaveholders in the state, the president retorted: ‘What would you do in my position? … Would you give up the contest leaving any available means unapplied?’ Then, in a masterful argument, he subordinated all other interests to the prime goal. Everything he did, Lincoln protested, was done for one reason: to uphold the Union. ‘The truth is, that what is done, and omitted, about the slaves, is done and omitted on the same military necessity. … I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination.’ A few weeks later, Lincoln again moved to manage the public mindset when he published a similar response to a particularly critical New York Tribune piece by Horace Greeley, once more raising the Union above any other consideration. Understanding that much of the citizenry needed justification for an action as bold as liberating the slaves, Lincoln made the one argument with which most everyone could agree.”

NOTE TO READERS

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PRIVATE

Washington D.C. July 28. 1862

Cuthbert Bullitt Esq

New Orleans La.

Sir:

The copy of a letter addressed to yourself by Mr. Thomas J. Durant, has been shown to me. The writer appears to be an able, a dispassionate, and an entirely sincere man. The first part of the letter is devoted to an effort to show that the Secession Ordinance of Louisiana was adopted against the will of a majority of the people. This is probably true; and in that fact may be found some instruction. Why did they allow the Ordinance to go into effect? Why did they not assert themselves? Why stand passive and allow themselves to be trodden down by a minority? Why did they not hold popular meetings, and have a convention of their own, to express and enforce the true sentiment of the state? If preorganization was against them then, why not do this now, that the United States Army is present to protect them? The paralysis –the dead palsy-of the government in this whole struggle is, that this class of men will do nothing for the government, nothing for themselves, except demanding that the government shall not strike its open enemies, lest they be struck by accident!

Mr. Durant complains that in various ways the relation of master and slave is disturbed by the presence of our Army; and he considers it particularly vexatious that this, in part, is done under cover of an act of Congress, while constitutional guaranties are suspended on the plea of military necessity. The truth is, that what is done, and omitted, about slaves, is done and omitted on the same military necessity. It is a military necessity to have men and money; and we can get neither, in sufficient numbers, or amounts, if we keep from, or drive from, our lines, slaves coming to them. Mr. Durant cannot be ignorant of the pressure in this direction; nor of my efforts to hold it within bounds till he, and such as he shall have time to help themselves.

I am not posted to speak understandingly on all the police regulations of which Mr. Durant complains. If experience shows any one of them to be wrong, let them be set right. I think I can perceive, in the freedom of trade, which Mr. Durant urges, that he would relieve both friends and enemies from the pressure of the blockade. By this he would serve the enemy more effectively than the enemy is able to serve himself. I do not say or believe that to serve the enemy is the purpose of Mr. Durant; or that he is conscious of any purpose, other than national and patriotic ones. Still, if there were a class of men who, having no choice of sides in the contest, were anxious only to have quiet and comfort for themselves while it rages, and to fall in with the victorious side at the end of it, without loss to themselves, their advice as to the mode of conducting the contest would be precisely such as his is. He speaks of no duty—apparently thinks of none—resting upon Union men. He even thinks it injurious to the Union cause that they should be restrained in trade and passage without taking sides. They are to touch neither a sail nor a pump, but to be merely passengers,—dead-heads at that—to be carried snug and dry, throughout the storm, and safely landed right side up. Nay, more; even a mutineer is to go untouched lest these sacred passengers receive an accidental wound.

Of course the rebellion will never be suppressed in Louisiana, if the professed Union men there will neither help to do it, nor permit the government to do it without their help.

Now, I think the true remedy is very different from what is suggested by Mr. Durant. It does not lie in rounding the rough angles of the war, but in removing the necessity for the war. The people of Louisiana who wish protection to person and property, have but to reach forth their hands and take it. Let them, in good faith, reinaugurate the national authority, and set up a State Government conforming thereto under the constitution. They know how to do it, and can have the protection of the Army while doing it. The Army will be withdrawn so soon as such State government can dispense with its presence; and the people of the State can then upon the old Constitutional terms, govern themselves to their own liking. This is very simple and easy.

If they will not do this, if they prefer to hazard all for the sake of destroying the government, it is for them to consider whether it is probable I will surrender the government to save them from losing all. If they decline what I suggest, you scarcely need to ask what I will do. What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is? Or, would you prosecute it in future, with elder-stalk squirts, charged with rose water? Would you deal lighter blows rather than heavier ones? Would you give up the contest, leaving any available means unapplied.

I am in no boastful mood. I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.

Yours truly

A. LINCOLN

Letter to Henry Sibley (December 6, 1862)

“Ordered that of the Indians and Half-breeds sentenced to be hanged by the Military Commission, composed of Colonel Crooks, Lt. Colonel Marshall, Captain Grant, Captain Bailey, and Lieutenant Olin, and lately sitting in Minnesota, you cause to be executed on Friday the nineteenth day of December, instant, the following named, towit: ‘Te-he-hdo-ne-cha.’ No. 2. by the record….”

Ranking

#113 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, December 6, 1862

The Lincoln Log, December 6, 1862

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–Francis Paul Prucha, The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), 443-445

How Historians Interpret

“A decisive victory by Sibley at Wood Lake on September 23 was the end of organized fighting by the Sioux in Minnesota. Indians who remained hostile fled west, and friendly chiefs arranged for the release of white captives. Large numbers of Sioux were captured or surrendered, and day by day more Indians, many of them on the point of starvation, gave themselves up. Cries of vengeance filled the air, and a five-man military commission was quickly appointed to try the captive Indians. The commission worked with great haste; in ten days it tried 392 prisoners, condemning 303 to death. Pope and Sibley wanted the condemned men executed at once, and they telegraphed the names to Lincoln for confirmation of the sentences. Lincoln would not move so precipitously; he directed that the full records of the trials be sent to him for review. . . It was not an easy question for Lincoln. He decided finally to uphold the sentence of death for only thirty-nine of the convicted me, and on December 6 he sent Sibley their names. He laid out the basis for his decision to the Senate. ‘Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak, on the one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty, on the other,’ Lincoln said, ‘I caused a careful examination of the records of the trials to be made, in view of first ordering the execution of such as had been proved guilty of violating females. Contrary to my expectations, only two of this class were found. I then directed a further examination, and a classification of all who were proven to have participated in massacres, as distinguished from participation in battles.’ One of the thirty-nine men was reprieved as the last minute; the thirty-eight were hanged at Mankato in a spectacle attended by a large crowd on December 26, 1862.”

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Executive Mansion, Washington,

December 6th. 1862.

Brigadier General H.H. Sibley

St. Paul Minnesota.

Ordered that of the Indians and Half-breeds sentenced to be hanged by the Military Commission, composed of Colonel Crooks, Lt. Colonel Marshall, Captain Grant, Captain Bailey, and Lieutenant Olin, and lately sitting in Minnesota, you cause to be executed on Friday the nineteenth day of December, instant, the following named, towit

“Te-he-hdo-ne-cha.” No. 2. by the record.

“Tazoo” alias “Plan-doo-ta.” No. 4. by the record.

“Wy-a-tah-to-wah” No. 5 by the record.

“Hin-han-shoon-ko-yag.” No. 6 by the record.

“Muz-za-bom-a-du.” No. 10. by the record.

“Wah-pay-du-ta.” No. 11. by the record.

“Wa-he-hud.” No. 12. by the record.

“Sna-ma-ni.” No. 14. by the record.

“Ta-te-mi-na.” No. 15. by the record.

“Rda-in-yan-kna.” No. 19. by the record.

“Do-wan-sa.” No. 22. by the record.

“Ha-pan.” No. 24. by the record.

“Shoon-ka-ska.” (White Dog). No. 35. by the record.

“Toon-kan-e-chah-tay-mane.” No. 67. by the record.

“E-tay-hoo-tay.” No. 68. by the record.

“Am-da-cha.” No. 69. by the record.

“Hay-pee-don—or, Wamne-omne-ho-ta.” No. 70. by the record.

“Mahpe-o-ke-na-ji.” No. 96. by the record.

“Henry Milord”—a Half-breed. No. 115. by the record.

“Chaskay-don”—or Chaskayetay.” No. 121. by the record.

“Baptiste Campbell” a Halfbreed. No. 138. by the record.

“Tah-ta-kay-gay.” No. 155. by the record.

“Ha-pink-pa.” No. 170 by the record.

“Hypolite Ange” a Half-breed. No. 175 by the record.

“Na-pay-Shue.” No. 178. by the record.

“Wa-kan-tan-ka.” No. 210. by the record.

“Toon-kan-ka-yag-e-na-jin.” No. 225. by the record.

“Ma-kat-e-na-jin.” No. 254. by the record.

“Pa-zee-koo-tay-ma-ne.” No. 264. by the record.

“Ta-tay-hde-don.” No. 279. by the record.

“Wa-She-choon,” or “Toon-kan-shkan-shkan-mene-hay.” No. 318. by the record.

“A-e-cha-ga.” No. 327. by the record.

“Ha-tan-in-koo.” No. 333. by the record.

“Chay-ton-hoon-ka.” No. 342. by the record.

“Chan-ka-hda.” No. 359. by the record.

“Hda-hin-hday.” No. 373. by the record.

“O-ya-tay-a-koo.” No. 377. by the record.

“May-hoo-way-wa.” No. 382. by the record.

“Wa-kin-yan-na.” No. 383 by the record

The other condemned prisoners you will hold subject to further orders, taking care that they neither escape, nor are subjected to any unlawful violence.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

Telegram to Joseph Hooker (June 10, 1863)

“I think Lee’s Army, and not Richmond, is your true objective point.”

Ranking

#116 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, June 10, 1863

The Lincoln Log, June 10, 1863

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–James M. McPherson, Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief (New York: Penguin, 2008)

How Historians Interpret

“Lee was indeed planning to move into Pennsylvania. He began to do so in the second week of June. For the third time in thirteen months, Lincoln saw a Confederate offensive as an opportunity rather than a threat. As he had done so during Jackson’s Shenandoah Valley campaign in May 1862 and during Lee’s invasion of Maryland the previous September, the president urged his army commander to attack or trap the enemy far from his home base. But as the Army of Northern Virginia began to march up the south bank of the Rappahannock toward the Shenandoah Valley, Hooker proposed to attack the corps Lee had left as a rear guard in the trenches near Fredericksburg. Both Lincoln and Halleck (whom the president brought into communication with Hooker) disapproved. Halleck wanted Hooker to ‘fight [the enemy’s] movable column first, instead of attacking his intrenchments, with your own forces separated by the Rappahannock.’ Lincoln put it more colorfully, using a typically pointed simile. When ‘you find Lee coming to the North of the Rappahannock, I would by no means cross to the South of it,’ advised the president. ‘I would not take the risk of being entangled upon the river, like and ox jumped half over a fence, and liable to be torn by dogs, front and read, without a fair chance to gore one way or kick another.’ Five days later, when it became clear that Lee’s whole army was leaving Fredericksburg, Hooker requested Lincoln’s permission to move quickly fifty miles south to attack the lightly defended Richmond defenses. ‘To march to Richmond at once,’ he said, would be ‘the most speedy and certain mode of giving the rebellion a mortal blow.’ Lincoln must have shaken his head in frustration when he read this telegram. He immediately wired Hooker: ‘Lee’s Army, and not Richmond, is your true objective point. . .’ By June 14 Union intelligence had learned that the Army of Northern Virginia was strung out almost sixty miles from Winchester back to Chancellorsville. ‘The animal must be very slim somewhere,’ the president telegraphed Hooker. ‘Could you not break him?'”

“Ignoring this advice, Hooker on June 10 proposed to forget about Lee and march toward Richmond. Lincoln, who thought ‘it would be a very poor exchange to give Washington for Richmond,’ immediately vetoed that suggestion. ‘If left to me, I would not go South of the Rappahannock, upon Lee’s moving North of it,’ the president wrote. ‘If you had Richmond invested to-day, you would not be able to take it in twenty days; meanwhile, your communications, and with them, your army would be ruined. I think Lee’s Army, and not Richmond, is your true objective point. If he comes towards the Upper Potomac, follow on his flank, and on the inside track, shortening your lines, whilst he lengthens his. Fight him when oppertunity offers. If he stays where he is, fret him, and fret him.’ Alarmed by Hooker’s evident unwillingness to confront the enemy, Lincoln planned to visit the front to consult with him. But he aborted that trip when Stanton and Halleck warned that it was too perilous to visit the general’s ever-shifting headquarters when that area could become the scene of battle.”

–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), 3338-3339.

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United States Military Telegraph

War Department. Washington DC.

“Cypher”

June 10. 1863. [6:40 P.M.]

Major General Hooker

Your long despatch of to-day is just received. If left to me, I would not go South of the Rappahannock, upon Lee’s moving North of it. If you had Richmond invested to-day, you would not be able to take it in twenty days; meanwhile, your communications, and with them, your army would be ruined. I think Lee’s Army, and not Richmond, is your true objective point. If he comes towards the Upper Potomac, follow on his flank, and on the inside track, shortening your lines, whilst he lengthens his. Fight him when oppertunity offers. If he stays where he is, fret him, and fret him.

A LINCOLN.

Letter to Mary Lincoln (June 16, 1863)

“It is a matter of choice with yourself whether you come home. There is no reason why you should not, that did not exist when you went away. As bearing on the question of your coming home, I do not think the raid into Pennsylvania amounts to anything at all.”

Ranking

#117 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, June 16, 1863

The Lincoln Log, June 16, 1863

Custom Map

–Daniel Mark Epstein, The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage (New York: Ballentine Books, 2008), 396

How Historians Interpret

“So little correspondence has survived between husband and wife that one is tempted to make much of a pittance. It is irresistible because Lincoln chose his words so carefully. Clearly she had asked whether she should come home; plainly he told her the war should not keep her away. So his first two sentences are telling. He would not order her to come home—it was not his way to order her about, any more than it was her habit to submit. The second, cryptic sentence addresses a great chasm between them. Simply translated, it means that since she left, nothing has changed; and if she wanted to be apart from him before, it will be no different now. The tone is distant and cool, not at all welcoming.”

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Washington City, D.C.

June 16. 1863

Mrs. Lincoln

Philadelphia.

It is a matter of choice with yourself whether you come home. There is no reason why you should not, that did not exist when you went away. As bearing on the question of your coming home, I do not think the raid into Pennsylvania amounts to anything at all

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 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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–T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952), 345

How Historians Interpret

“While Hood was marching to destruction in Tennessee, Sherman was moving across Georgia in the fabled march to the sea. He aimed to emerge at some point on the coast like Savannah or Port Royal where the Navy could pick him up and carry him to Virginia to join Grant in a final crushing movement against Lee. At first, Sherman himself was not sure which coastal port he would go to, and until he decided Lincoln and Grant knew only the general objective of his movement. Discussing Sherman with the General’s brother, a United States Senator, Lincoln said: ‘I know what hole he went in at, but I can’t tell what hole he will come out of.’ Although Sherman was virtually unopposed and untroubled by supply difficulties because he lived off the country, Lincoln feared for his safety. The President worried that the Confederates would concentrate enough forces to trap Sherman in the interior of Georgia. Grant assured Lincoln that Sherman had a large enough army to protect himself against any attack and, as Grant expressed it, strike bottom on salt water. By December 10, Sherman was in front of Savannah and laid the city under siege and certain capture. The Confederates evacuated it on the twenty-first, and Sherman had his base on the ocean. In a dramatic telegram to the government, he presented Savannah to the nation as a Christmas present. Lincoln was delighted with Sherman’s success and his despatch. He wrote the General a letter of appreciation which was, at the same time, an admirable analysis of the effect of Sherman’s movement on Southern morale.”

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Executive Mansion, Washington,

Dec. 26, 1864.

My dear General Sherman.

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. And, taking the work of Gen. Thomas into the count, as it should be taken, it is indeed a great success. Not only does it afford the obvious and immediate military advantages; but, in showing to the world that your army could be divided, putting the stronger part to an important new service, and yet leaving enough to vanquish the old opposing force of the whole—Hood’s army—it brings those who sat in darkness, to see a great light. But what next? I suppose it will be safer if I leave Gen. Grant and yourself to decide.

Please make my grateful acknowledgments to your whole army, officers and men.

Yours very truly

A. LINCOLN.

Letter to George McClellan (April 9, 1862)

“I beg to assure you that I have never written you, or spoken to you, in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you, so far as in my most anxious judgment, I consistently can. But you must act.”

Contributing Editors for this page include Brian Elsner, Carl Shusko, and Michael Van Wambeke

Ranking

#129 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, April 9, 1862

The Lincoln Log, April 9, 1862

Close Readings

Brian Elsner, “Understanding Lincoln” blog post (via Quora), October 6, 2013

Posted at YouTube by “Understanding Lincoln” participant Carl Shusko, 2016

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

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