The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, v6

HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Since my...

The in­flu­ence of your tele­gram the oth­er day is still up­on me, and has im­pressed me with the idea that there are many parts of the prob­lem which in­flu­ence you that are not known to me.

In or­der to re­lieve you from all em­bar­rass­ment in my case, I in­close with this my res­ig­na­tion of my com­mis­sion as ma­jor-​gen­er­al of vol­un­teers, which you can have ac­cept­ed if my move­ment is not in ac­cor­dance with the views of your­self and your mil­itary ad­vis­ers.

I have tak­en the lib­er­ty to write to you per­son­al­ly up­on this sub­ject, be­cause it was nec­es­sary, as I learned from Gen­er­al Hal­leck, for you to ap­prove of my gen­er­al plan, writ­ten at War­ren­ton, be­fore I could com­mence the move­ment; and I think it quite as nec­es­sary that you should know of the im­por­tant move­ment I am about to make, par­tic­ular­ly as it will have to be made in op­po­si­tion to the views of near­ly all my gen­er­al of­fi­cers, and af­ter the re­ceipt of a despatch from you in­form­ing me of the opin­ion of some of them who had vis­it­ed you.

In con­ver­sa­tion with you on New Year’s morn­ing I was led to ex­press some opin­ions which I af­ter­ward felt it my du­ty to place on pa­per, and to ex­press them ver­bal­ly to the gen­tle­man of whom we were speak­ing, which I did in your pres­ence, af­ter hand­ing you the let­ter. You were not dis­posed then, as I saw, to re­tain the let­ter, and I took it back, but I now re­turn it to you for record. if you wish it.

I beg leave to say that my res­ig­na­tion is not sent in in any spir­it of in­sub­or­di­na­tion, but, as I be­fore said, sim­ply to re­lieve you from any em­bar­rass­ment in chang­ing com­man­ders where lack of con­fi­dence may have ren­dered it nec­es­sary.

The bear­er of this will bring me any an­swer, or I should be glad to hear from you by tele­graph in ci­pher.

I have the hon­or to be, very re­spect­ful­ly, your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

A. E. BURN­SIDE, Ma­jor-​Gen­er­al, Com­mand­ing Army of the Po­tomac.

HEAD­QUAR­TERS OF THE ARMY, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 7, 1863.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL BURN­SIDE, Com­mand­ing, etc., Fal­mouth:

GEN­ER­AL:–Your com­mu­ni­ca­tion of the 5th was de­liv­ered to me by your aide-​de-​camp at 12 M. to-​day.

In all my com­mu­ni­ca­tions and in­ter­views with you since you took com­mand of the Army of the Po­tomac I have ad­vised a for­ward move­ment across the Rap­pa­han­nock. At our in­ter­view at War­ren­ton I urged that you should cross by the fords above Fred­er­icks­burg rather than to fall down to that place; and when I left you at War­ren­ton it was un­der­stood that at least a con­sid­er­able part of your army would cross by the fords, and I so rep­re­sent­ed to the Pres­ident. It was this mod­ifi­ca­tion of the plan pro­posed by you that I tele­graphed you had re­ceived his ap­proval. When the at­tempt at Fred­er­icks­burg was aban­doned, I ad­vised you to re­new the at­tempt at some oth­er point, ei­ther in whole or in part, to turn the en­emy’s works, or to threat­en their wings or com­mu­ni­ca­tions; in oth­er words, to keep the en­emy oc­cu­pied till a fa­vor­able op­por­tu­ni­ty of­fered to strike a de­ci­sive blow. I par­tic­ular­ly ad­vised you to use your cav­al­ry and light ar­tillery up­on his com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and at­tempt to cut off his sup­plies and en­gage him at an ad­van­tage.

In all our in­ter­views I have urged that our first ob­ject was, not Rich­mond, but the de­feat or scat­ter­ing of Lee’s army, which threat­ened Wash­ing­ton and the line of the up­per Po­tomac. I now re­cur to these things sim­ply to re­mind you of the gen­er­al views which I have ex­pressed, and which I still hold.

The cir­cum­stances of the case, how­ev­er, have some­what changed since the ear­ly part of Novem­ber. The chances of an ex­tend­ed line of op­er­ations are now, on ac­count of the ad­vanced sea­son, much less than then. But the chances are still in our fa­vor to meet and de­feat the en­emy on the Rap­pa­han­nock, if we can ef­fect a cross­ing in a po­si­tion where we can meet the en­emy on fa­vor­able or even equal terms. I there­fore still ad­vise a move­ment against him. The char­ac­ter of that move­ment, how­ev­er, must de­pend up­on cir­cum­stances which may change any day and al­most any hour. If the en­emy should con­cen­trate his forces at the place you have se­lect­ed for a cross­ing, make it a feint and try an­oth­er place. Again, the cir­cum­stances at the time may be such as to ren­der an at­tempt to cross the en­tire army not ad­vis­able. In that case, the­ory sug­gests that, while the en­emy con­cen­trates at that point, ad­van­tages can be gained by cross­ing small­er forces at oth­er points to cut off his lines, de­stroy his com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and cap­ture his rear-​guards, out­posts, etc. The great ob­ject is to oc­cu­py the en­emy to pre­vent his mak­ing large de­tach­ments or dis­tant raids, and to in­jure him all you can with the least in­jury to your­self. If this can be best ac­com­plished by feints of a gen­er­al cross­ing and de­tached re­al cross­ings, take that course; if by an ac­tu­al gen­er­al cross­ing, with feints on oth­er points, adopt that course. There seem to me to be many rea­sons why a cross­ing at some point should be at­tempt­ed. It will not do to keep your large army in­ac­tive. As you your­self ad­mit, it de­volves on you to de­cide up­on the time, place, and char­ac­ter of the cross­ing which you may at­tempt. I can on­ly ad­vise that an at­tempt be made, and as ear­ly as pos­si­ble.

Very re­spect­ful­ly, your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

H. W. HAL­LECK, Gen­er­al-​in-​Chief.

[In­dorse­ment.]

Jan­uary 8, 1863.

GEN­ER­AL BURN­SIDE:

I un­der­stand Gen­er­al Hal­leck has sent you a let­ter of which this is a copy. I ap­prove this let­ter. I de­plore the want of con­cur­rence with you in opin­ion by your gen­er­al of­fi­cers, but I do not see the rem­edy. Be cau­tious, and do not un­der­stand that the gov­ern­ment or coun­try is driv­ing you. I do not yet see how I could prof­it by chang­ing the com­mand of the Army of the Po­tomac; and if I did, I should not wish to do it by ac­cept­ing the res­ig­na­tion of your com­mis­sion.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GOV­ER­NOR JOHN­SON.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 8, 1863.

GOV­ER­NOR JOHN­SON, Nashville Tenn.:

A dis­patch of yes­ter­day from Nashville says the body of Cap­tain Todd, of the Sixth Ken­tucky, was brought in to-​day.

Please tell me what was his Chris­tian name, and whether he was in our ser­vice or that of the en­emy. I shall al­so be glad to have your im­pres­sion as to the ef­fect the late op­er­ations about Murfrees­bor­ough will have on the prospects of Ten­nessee.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL S. R. CUR­TIS.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 10, 1863.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL CUR­TIS, St. Louis, MO.:

I un­der­stand there is con­sid­er­able trou­ble with the slaves in Mis­souri. Please do your best to keep peace on the ques­tion for two or three weeks, by which time we hope to do some­thing here to­ward set­tling the ques­tion in Mis­souri.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GOV­ER­NOR JOHN­SON.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 10, 1863

GOV­ER­NOR JOHN­SON, Nashville, Tenn.:

Yours re­ceived. I pre­sume the re­mains of Cap­tain Todd are in the hands of his fam­ily and friends, and I wish to give no or­der on the sub­ject; but I do wish your opin­ion of the ef­fects of the late bat­tles about Murfrees­bor­ough up­on the prospects of Ten­nessee.

A. LIN­COLN.

IN­STRUC­TION TO THE JUDGE-​AD­VO­CATE-​GEN­ER­AL.

WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON CITY, Jan­uary 12, 1863.

The Judge-​Ad­vo­cate-​Gen­er­al is in­struct­ed to re­vise the pro­ceed­ings of the court-​mar­tial in the case of Ma­jor-​Gen­er­al Fitz-​John Porter, and to re­port ful­ly up­on any le­gal ques­tions that may have arisen in them, and up­on the bear­ing of the tes­ti­mo­ny in ref­er­ence to the charges and spec­ifi­ca­tions ex­hib­it­ed against the ac­cused, and up­on which he was tried.

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

MES­SAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REP­RE­SEN­TA­TIVES. JAN­UARY 14, 1863.