{"id":1011,"date":"2013-06-29T12:32:06","date_gmt":"2013-06-29T12:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/?p=1011"},"modified":"2016-06-19T01:49:25","modified_gmt":"2016-06-19T01:49:25","slug":"letter-to-david-hunter-december-31-1861","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/letter-to-david-hunter-december-31-1861\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to David Hunter (December 31, 1861)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Contributing Editors for this page include Thomas Warf<\/em><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Ranking<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #0000ff; font-size: 36px;\">#84<\/span> on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>Annotated Transcript<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/40470\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Yours of the 23rd. is received; and I am constrained to say it is difficult to answer so ugly a letter in good temper.&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>On This Date<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/panel\/this_date\/1861-12-31\" target=\"_blank\">HD Daily Report, December 31, 1861<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thelincolnlog.org\/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&amp;day=1861-12-31\">The Lincoln Log, December 31, 1861<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Custom Map<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps\/ms?msid=214923210427089848626.0004def4e79e2ae545ca4&amp;msa=0&amp;ll=39.422934,-94.901619&amp;spn=0.188829,0.331306&amp;iwloc=0004e062040071b77ae94\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-3325\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/files\/2013\/06\/Screen-shot-2014-01-26-at-6.47.09-PM.png\" alt=\"Screen shot 2014-01-26 at 6.47.09 PM\" width=\"484\" height=\"440\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/files\/2013\/06\/Screen-shot-2014-01-26-at-6.47.09-PM.png 692w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/files\/2013\/06\/Screen-shot-2014-01-26-at-6.47.09-PM-300x272.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 484px) 100vw, 484px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps\/ms?msid=214923210427089848626.0004def4e79e2ae545ca4&amp;msa=0&amp;ll=39.422934,-94.901619&amp;spn=0.188829,0.331306&amp;iwloc=0004e062040071b77ae94\" target=\"_blank\">View in Larger Map<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Close Readings<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/I5NC7cYTkQ0?rel=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nPosted at YouTube by &#8220;Understanding Lincoln&#8221; course participant Thomas Warf, August 2014<\/p>\n<h3>How Historians Interpret<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cOther squabbles among generals exasperated Lincoln. David Hunter and John G.\u00a0Foster quarreled about which of them would control a part of Foster\u2019s corps that happened to be situated in Hunter\u2019s 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\u2019s relief, Grant conducted the Vicksburg campaign without grumbling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Michael Burlingame,\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.knox.edu\/documents\/pdfs\/LincolnStudies\/Burlingame,%20Vol%202,%20Chap%2030.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Abraham Lincoln: A Life<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 2, Chapter 30 (PDF), 3291-3292.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNine 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\u2019s own moral self-shaping. Hunter, a man whom Lincoln knew, had been sending him a \u2018flood of grumbling\u2019 letters and had complained about being in command of \u2018only 3000.\u2019 Lincoln, preparing his response, first insisted that he was Hunter\u2019s friend and therefore could \u2018dare to make a suggestion.\u2019 Then he told Hunter \u2013 in a December 31, 1861 letter \u2013 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\u2019s <em>Essay on Man<\/em>: \u2018Act well your part there all the honor lies.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;William Lee Miller, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=DFzuHkk9HEEC&amp;pg=PT44&amp;dq=Lincoln+letter+to+david+hunter+December+31+1861&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwj3hKb9xqrNAhXCXD4KHfgZAFQ4ChDrAQg8MAU\" target=\"_blank\">President Lincoln<\/a> <\/em>(New York: Knopf, 2008).<\/p>\n<h3>NOTE TO READERS<\/h3>\n<p>This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new \u201cUnderstanding Lincoln\u201d 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&#8217;s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at <a href=\"http:\/\/new.livestream.com\/gilderlehrman\/lincoln\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/new.livestream.com\/gilderlehrman\/lincoln<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #c0c0c0;\">Searchable Text<\/span><\/h3>\n<div><span style=\"color: #c0c0c0;\">Executive Mansion, Washington,<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #c0c0c0;\">Dec. 31, 1861.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #c0c0c0;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #c0c0c0;\">Major General Hunter.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #c0c0c0;\">Dear Sir:<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #c0c0c0;\">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 &#8220;humiliated, insulted and disgraced&#8221;; 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\u00a0undesireable, 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?<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #c0c0c0;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #c0c0c0;\">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. &#8220;Act well your part, there all the honor lies.&#8221; He who does something at the head of one Regiment, will eclipse him who does nothing at the head of a hundred.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #c0c0c0;\">Your friend as ever,<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #c0c0c0;\">A. LINCOLN<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Contributing Editors for this page include Thomas Warf Ranking #84 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents Annotated Transcript &#8220;Yours of the 23rd. is received; and I am constrained to say it is difficult to answer so ugly a letter in good temper.&#8221; On This Date HD Daily Report, December 31, 1861 The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10857],"tags":[10877,10896,11651,6088,11630,10865,10862,10876],"class_list":["post-1011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-father-abraham","tag-advice","tag-anger","tag-friendship","tag-letter","tag-military-affairs","tag-private","tag-wartime","tag-younger-readers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4358,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions\/4358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}