The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, v6

MY DEAR GENERAL:–I have just received your letter of the...

I as­sure you, and you may feel au­tho­rized in stat­ing, that the re­cent change of com­man­ders in the De­part­ment of the South was made for no rea­sons which con­vey any im­pu­ta­tion up­on your known en­er­gy, ef­fi­cien­cy, and pa­tri­otism; but for caus­es which seemed suf­fi­cient, while they were in no de­gree in­com­pat­ible with the re­spect and es­teem in which I have al­ways held you as a man and an of­fi­cer.

I can­not, by giv­ing my con­sent to a pub­li­ca­tion of whose de­tails I know noth­ing, as­sume the re­spon­si­bil­ity of what­ev­er you may write. In this mat­ter your own sense of mil­itary pro­pri­ety must be your guide, and the reg­ula­tions of the ser­vice your rule of con­duct.

I am very tru­ly your friend, A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL BURN­SIDE.

WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON, D. C., Ju­ly 3, 1863

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL BURN­SIDE, Cincin­nati, Ohio:

Pri­vate Downey, of the Twen­ti­eth or Twen­ty-​sixth Ken­tucky In­fantry, is said to have been sen­tenced to be shot for de­ser­tion to-​day. If so, respite the ex­ecu­tion un­til I can see the record.

A. LIN­COLN.

RE­AS­SUR­ING SON IN COL­LEGE

TELE­GRAM TO ROBERT T, LIN­COLN.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Ju­ly 3,1863.

ROBERT T. LIN­COLN, Esq., Cam­bridge, Mass.: Don’t he un­easy. Your moth­er very slight­ly hurt by her fall.

A.L. Please send at once.

AN­NOUNCE­MENT OF NEWS FROM GET­TYS­BURG.

WASH­ING­TON,

Ju­ly 4, 10.30 A.M.

The Pres­ident an­nounces to the coun­try that news from the Army of the Po­tomac, up to 10 P.M. of the 3d, is such as to cov­er that army with the high­est hon­or, to promise a great suc­cess to the cause of the Union, and to claim the con­do­lence of all for the many gal­lant fall­en; and that for this he es­pe­cial­ly de­sires that on this day He whose will, not ours, should ev­er be done be ev­ery­where re­mem­bered and rev­er­enced with pro­found­est grat­itude.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL FRENCH. [Ci­pher] WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON, D. C., Ju­ly 5, 1863.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL FRENCH, Fred­er­ick­town, Md.:

I see your despatch about de­struc­tion of pon­toons. Can­not the en­emy ford the riv­er?

A. LIN­COLN.

CON­TIN­UED FAIL­URE TO PUR­SUE EN­EMY

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL H. W. HAL­LECK.

SOL­DIERS’ HOME, WASH­ING­TON, JU­LY 6 1863.7 P.M.,

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL HAL­LECK:

I left the tele­graph of­fice a good deal dis­sat­is­fied. You know I did not like the phrase–in Or­ders, No. 68, I be­lieve–“Drive the in­vaders from our soil.” Since that, I see a despatch from Gen­er­al French, say­ing the en­emy is cross­ing his wound­ed over the riv­er in flats, with­out say­ing why he does not stop it, or even in­ti­mat­ing a thought that it ought to be stopped. Still lat­er, an­oth­er despatch from Gen­er­al Plea­son­ton, by di­rec­tion of Gen­er­al Meade, to Gen­er­al French, stat­ing that the main army is halt­ed be­cause it is be­lieved the rebels are con­cen­trat­ing “on the road to­wards Hager­stown, be­yond Fair­field,” and is not to move un­til it is as­cer­tained that the rebels in­tend to evac­uate Cum­ber­land Val­ley.

These things ap­pear to me to be con­nect­ed with a pur­pose to cov­er Bal­ti­more and Wash­ing­ton and to get the en­emy across the riv­er again with­out a fur­ther col­li­sion, and they do not ap­pear con­nect­ed with a pur­pose to pre­vent his cross­ing and to de­stroy him. I do fear the for­mer pur­pose is act­ed up­on and the lat­ter re­ject­ed.

If you are sat­is­fied the lat­ter pur­pose is en­ter­tained, and is ju­di­cious­ly pur­sued, I am con­tent. If you are not so sat­is­fied, please look to it.

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

RE­SPONSE TO A SER­ENADE,

JU­LY 7, 1863.

FEL­LOW-​CIT­IZENS:–I am very glad in­deed to see you to-​night, and yet I will not say I thank you for this call; but I do most sin­cere­ly thank Almighty God for the oc­ca­sion on which you have called. How long ago is it Eighty-​odd years since, on the Fourth of Ju­ly, for the first time in the his­to­ry of the world, a na­tion, by its rep­re­sen­ta­tives, as­sem­bled and de­clared as a self-​ev­ident truth “that all men are cre­at­ed equal.” That was the birth­day of the Unit­ed States of Amer­ica. Since then the Fourth of Ju­ly has had sev­er­al very pe­cu­liar recog­ni­tions. The two men most dis­tin­guished in the fram­ing and sup­port of the Dec­la­ra­tion were Thomas Jef­fer­son and John Adams, the one hav­ing penned it, and the oth­er sus­tained it the most forcibly in de­bate–the on­ly two of the fifty-​five who signed it and were elect­ed Pres­idents of the Unit­ed States. Pre­cise­ly fifty years af­ter they put their hands to the pa­per, it pleased Almighty God to take both from this stage of ac­tion. This was in­deed an ex­traor­di­nary and re­mark­able event in our his­to­ry. An­oth­er Pres­ident, five years af­ter, was called from this stage of ex­is­tence on the same day and month of the year; and now on this last Fourth of Ju­ly just passed, when we have a gi­gan­tic re­bel­lion, at the bot­tom of which is an ef­fort to over­throw the prin­ci­ple that all men were cre­at­ed equal, we have the sur­ren­der of a most pow­er­ful po­si­tion and army on that very day. And not on­ly so, but in the suc­ces­sion of bat­tles in Penn­syl­va­nia, near to us, through three days, so rapid­ly fought that they might be called one great bat­tle, on the first, sec­ond, and third of the month of Ju­ly; and on the fourth the co­horts of those who op­posed the Dec­la­ra­tion that all men are cre­at­ed equal, “turned tail” and run.

Gen­tle­men, this is a glo­ri­ous theme, and the oc­ca­sion for a speech, but I am not pre­pared to make one wor­thy of the oc­ca­sion. I would like to speak in terms of praise due to the many brave of­fi­cers and sol­diers who have fought in the cause of the Union and lib­er­ties of their coun­try from the be­gin­ning of the war. These are try­ing oc­ca­sions, not on­ly in suc­cess, but for the want of suc­cess. I dis­like to men­tion the name of one sin­gle of­fi­cer, lest I might do wrong to those I might for­get. Re­cent events bring up glo­ri­ous names, and par­tic­ular­ly promi­nent ones; but these I will not men­tion. Hav­ing said this much, I will now take the mu­sic.

SUR­REN­DER OF VICKS­BURG TO GEN­ER­AL GRANT

TELE­GRAM FROM GEN­ER­AL HAL­LECK TO GEN­ER­AL G. C. MEADE.

WASH­ING­TON, D.C., Ju­ly 7, 1863.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL MEADE, Army of the Po­tomac:

I have re­ceived from the Pres­ident the fol­low­ing note, which I re­spect­ful­ly com­mu­ni­cate:

“We have cer­tain in­for­ma­tion that Vicks­burg sur­ren­dered to Gen­er­al Grant on the Fourth of Ju­ly. Now if Gen­er­al Meade can com­plete his work, so glo­ri­ous­ly pros­ecut­ed this far, by the lit­er­al or sub­stan­tial de­struc­tion of Lee’s army, the re­bel­lion will be over.

“Yours tru­ly, “A. LIN­COLN.”

H. W. HAL­LECK. Gen­er­al-​in-​Chief.

TELE­GRAM FROM GEN­ER­AL HAL­LECK TO GEN­ER­AL G. C. MEADE.

WASH­ING­TON, D. C., Ju­ly 8, 1863.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL MEADE, Fred­er­ick, Md.:

There is re­li­able in­for­ma­tion that the en­emy is cross­ing at Williamsport. The op­por­tu­ni­ty to at­tack his di­vid­ed forces should not be lost. The Pres­ident is ur­gent and anx­ious that your army should move against him by forced march­es.

H. W. HAL­LECK, Gen­era1-in-​Chief

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL THOMAS.

WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON, Ju­ly 8, 1863.12.30 P.M.

GEN­ER­AL LOREN­ZO THOMAS, Har­ris­burg, Pa.:

Your despatch of this morn­ing to the Sec­re­tary of War is be­fore me. The forces you speak of will be of no imag­in­able ser­vice if they can­not go for­ward with a lit­tle more ex­pe­di­tion. Lee is now pass­ing the Po­tomac faster than the forces you men­tion are pass­ing Carlisle. Forces now be­yond Carlisle to be joined by reg­iments still at Har­ris­burg, and the unit­ed force again to join Pierce some­where, and the whole to move down the Cum­ber­land Val­ley, will in my un­pro­fes­sion­al opin­ion be quite as like­ly to cap­ture the “man in the moon” as any part of Lee’s army.

A. LIN­COLN.

NEWS OF GRANT’S CAP­TURE OF VICKS­BURG

TELE­GRAM TO E. D. SMITH.

WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON, D.C., Ju­ly 8, 1863.

E. DE­LAFIELD SMITH, New York:

Your kind despatch in be­half of self and friends is grate­ful­ly re­ceived. Cap­ture of Vicks­burg con­firmed by despatch from Gen­er­al Grant him­self.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO F. F. LOWE.

WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON, D.C., Ju­ly 8, 1863.

HON. F. F. LOWE, San Fran­cis­co, Cal.:

There is no doubt that Gen­er­al Meade, now com­mand­ing the Army of the Po­tomac, beat Lee at Get­tys­burg, Pa., at the end of a three days’ bat­tle, and that the lat­ter is now cross­ing the Po­tomac at Williamsport over the swollen stream and with poor means of cross­ing, and close­ly pressed by Meade. We al­so have despatch­es ren­der­ing it en­tire­ly cer­tain that Vicks­burg sur­ren­dered to Gen­er­al Grant on the glo­ri­ous old 4th.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO L. SWETT AND P. F. LOWE. [Ci­pher.] WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON CITY, D.C., Ju­ly 9, 1863.

HON. LEONARD SWETT, HON. F. F. LOWE, San Fran­cis­co, Cal.:

Con­sult to­geth­er and do not have a ri­ot, or great dif­fi­cul­ty about de­liv­er­ing pos­ses­sion.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO J. K. DUBOIS.

WASH­ING­TON, D.C., Ju­ly 11,1863. 9 A.M.

HON. J. K. DUBOIS, Spring­field, Ill.:

It is cer­tain that, af­ter three days’ fight­ing at Get­tys­burg, Lee with­drew and made for the Po­tomac, that he found the riv­er so swollen as to pre­vent his cross­ing; that he is still this side, near Hager­stown and Williamsport, prepar­ing to de­fend him­self; and that Meade is close up­on him, and prepar­ing to at­tack him, heavy skir­mish­ing hav­ing oc­curred near­ly all day yes­ter­day.

I am more than sat­is­fied with what has hap­pened north of the Po­tomac so far, and am anx­ious and hope­ful for what is to come.

A. LIN­COLN.

[Noth­ing came! Lee was al­lowed to es­cape again and the war went on for an­oth­er two years. D.W.]

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL SCHENCK. [Ci­pher.] WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON CITY, Ju­ly 11, 1863.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL SCHENCK, Bal­ti­more, Md.:

How many rebel pris­on­ers cap­tured with­in Mary­land and Penn­syl­va­nia have reached Bal­ti­more with­in this month of Ju­ly?

A. LIN­COLN.

TO GEN­ER­AL GRANT.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Ju­ly 13, 1863.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL GRANT:

MY DEAR GEN­ER­AL:–I do not re­mem­ber that you and I ev­er met per­son­al­ly. I write this now as a grate­ful ac­knowl­edg­ment of the al­most in­es­timable ser­vice you have done the Coun­try. I write 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 dropped be­low, and took Port Gib­son, Grand Gulf, and vicin­ity, I thought you should go down the riv­er and join Gen­er­al Banks; and when you turned north­ward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mis­take. I now wish to make the per­son­al ac­knowl­edg­ment that you were right and I was wrong.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL J. M. SCHOFIELD.

WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON, Ju­ly 13, 1863.

GEN­ER­AL SCHOFIELD. St. Louis, Mo.:

I re­gret to learn of the ar­rest of the Demo­crat ed­itor. I fear this los­es you the mid­dle po­si­tion I de­sired you to oc­cu­py. I have not learned which of the two let­ters I wrote you it was that the Demo­crat pub­lished, but I care very lit­tle for the pub­li­ca­tion of any let­ter I have writ­ten. Please spare me the trou­ble this is like­ly to bring.

A. LIN­COLN.

SON IN COL­LEGE DOES NOT WRITE HIS PAR­ENTS

TELE­GRAM TO R. T. LIN­COLN.

WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON D.C., Ju­ly 14, 1863.

ROBERT T. LIN­COLN: New York, Fifth Av­enue Ho­tel:

Why do I hear no more of you?

A. LIN­COLN.

IN­TI­MA­TION OF ARMISTICE PRO­POS­ALS

FROM JAMES R. GILMORE TO GOV­ER­NOR VANCE OF NORTH CAR­OLI­NA, WITH THE PRES­IDENT’S IN­DORSE­MENT.

PRES­IDENT’S ROOM, WHITE HOUSE, WASH­ING­TON,

Ju­ly [15?] 1864.

HIS EX­CEL­LEN­CY ZE­BU­LON B. VANCE.

MY DEAR SIR:–My for­mer busi­ness part­ner, Mr. Fred­er­ic Kid­der, of Boston, has for­ward­ed to me a let­ter he has re­cent­ly re­ceived from his broth­er, Ed­ward Kid­der, of Wilm­ing­ton, in which (Ed­ward Kid­der) says that he has had an in­ter­view with you in which you ex­pressed an anx­iety for any peace com­pat­ible with hon­or; that you re­gard slav­ery as al­ready dead, and the es­tab­lish­ment of the Con­fed­er­acy as hope­less; and that you should ex­ert all your in­flu­ence to bring about any re­union that would ad­mit the South on terms of per­fect equal­ity with the North.

On re­ceipt of this let­ter I lost no time in lay­ing it be­fore the Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States, who ex­pressed great grat­ifi­ca­tion at hear­ing such sen­ti­ments from you, one of the most in­flu­en­tial and hon­ored of the South­ern gov­er­nors, and he de­sires me to say that he ful­ly shares your anx­iety for the restora­tion of peace be­tween the States and for a re­union of all the States on the ba­sis of the abo­li­tion of slav­ery–the bone we are fight­ing over–and the full re­in­state­ment of ev­ery Con­fed­er­ate cit­izen in all the rights of cit­izen­ship in our com­mon coun­try. These points con­ced­ed, the Pres­ident au­tho­rizes me to say that he will be glad to re­ceive over­tures from any man, or body of men, who have au­thor­ity to con­trol the armies of the Con­fed­er­acy; and that he and the Unit­ed States Congress will be found very lib­er­al on all col­lat­er­al points that may come up in the set­tle­ment.

His views on the col­lat­er­al points that may nat­ural­ly arise, the Pres­ident de­sires me to say he will com­mu­ni­cate to you through me if you should sug­gest the per­son­al in­ter­view that Mr. Ed­ward Kid­der rec­om­mends in his let­ter to his broth­er. In that case you will please for­ward to me, through Mr. Kid­der, your of­fi­cial per­mit, as Gov­er­nor of North Car­oli­na, to en­ter and leave the State, and to re­main in it in safe­ty dur­ing the pen­den­cy of these ne­go­ti­ations, which, I sup­pose, should be con­duct­ed in en­tire se­cre­cy un­til they as­sume an of­fi­cial char­ac­ter. With high con­sid­er­ation, I am,

Sin­cere­ly yours,

JAMES R. GILMORE.

[In­dorse­ment.] This let­ter has been writ­ten in my pres­ence, has been read by me, and has my en­tire ap­proval. A.L.

PROCLA­MA­TION FOR THANKS­GIV­ING, JU­LY 15, 1863 BY THE PRES­IDENT OF THE UNIT­ED STATES OF AMER­ICA:

A Procla­ma­tion.

It has pleased Almighty God to hear­ken to the sup­pli­ca­tions and prayers of an af­flict­ed peo­ple, and to vouch­safe to the army and navy of the Unit­ed States vic­to­ries on land and on the sea so sig­nal and so ef­fec­tive as to fur­nish rea­son­able grounds for aug­ment­ed con­fi­dence that the Union of these States will be main­tained, their Con­sti­tu­tion pre­served, and their peace and pros­per­ity per­ma­nent­ly re­stored. But these vic­to­ries have been ac­cord­ed not with­out sac­ri­fices of life, limb, health, and lib­er­ty, in­curred by brave, loy­al, and pa­tri­ot­ic cit­izens. Do­mes­tic af­flic­tion in ev­ery part of the coun­try fol­lows in the train of these fear­ful be­reave­ments. It is meet and right to rec­og­nize and con­fess the pres­ence of the Almighty Fa­ther, and the pow­er of His hand equal­ly in these tri­umphs and in these sor­rows.

Now, there­fore, be it known that I do set apart Thurs­day, the 6th day of Au­gust next, to be ob­served as a day for na­tion­al thanks­giv­ing, praise, and prayer, and I in­vite the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States to as­sem­ble on that oc­ca­sion in their cus­tom­ary places of wor­ship, and, in the forms ap­proved by their own con­sciences, ren­der the homage due to the Di­vine Majesty for the won­der­ful things He has done in the na­tion’s be­half, and in­voke the in­flu­ence of His Holy Spir­it to sub­due the anger which has pro­duced and so long sus­tained a need­less and cru­el re­bel­lion, to change the hearts of the in­sur­gents, to guide the coun­sels of the Gov­ern­ment with wis­dom ad­equate to so great a na­tion­al emer­gen­cy, and to vis­it with ten­der care and con­so­la­tion through­out the length and breadth of our land all those who, through the vi­cis­si­tudes of march­es, voy­ages, bat­tles, and sieges have been, brought to suf­fer in mind, body, or es­tate, and fi­nal­ly to lead the whole na­tion through the paths of re­pen­tance and sub­mis­sion to the Di­vine Will back to the per­fect en­joy­ment of union and fra­ter­nal peace.

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 Ju­ly, in the year of our Lord one thou­sand eight hun­dred and six­ty-​three, and of the in­de­pen­dence of the Unit­ed States of Amer­ica the eighty-​eighth.

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

By, the Pres­ident WILLIAM H. SE­WARD, Sec­re­tary of State.

TELE­GRAM TO L. SWETT. [Ci­pher.] WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON CITY, Ju­ly 15, 1863.

HON. L SWETT, San Fran­cis­co, Cal.:

Many per­sons are tele­graph­ing me from Cal­ifor­nia, beg­ging me for the peace of the State to sus­pend the mil­itary en­force­ment of the writ of pos­ses­sion in the Al­maden case, while you are the sin­gle one who urges the con­trary. You know I would like to oblige you, but it seems to me my du­ty in this case is the oth­er way.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO SI­MON CAMERON. [Ci­pher.] WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON CITY, JU­LY 15, 1863.

HON. SI­MON CAMERON, Har­ris­burg, Pa.:

Your despatch of yes­ter­day re­ceived. Lee was al­ready across the riv­er when you sent it. I would give much to be re­lieved of the im­pres­sion that Meade, Couch, Smith, and all since the bat­tle at Get­tys­burg, have striv­en on­ly to get Lee over the riv­er with­out an­oth­er fight. Please tell me, if you know, who was the one corps com­man­der who was for fight­ing in the coun­cil of war on Sun­day night.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO J. O. BROAD­HEAD.

WASH­ING­TON, D.C., JU­LY 15, 1863.

J. O. BROAD­HEAD, St. Louis, Mo.:

The ef­fect on po­lit­ical po­si­tion of Mc­Kee’s ar­rest will not be re­lieved any by its not hav­ing been made with that pur­pose.

A. LIN­COLN.

TO GEN­ER­AL LANE.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Ju­ly 17 1863.

HON. S. H. LANE.

MY DEAR SIR:–Gov­er­nor Car­ney has not asked to [have] Gen­er­al Blunt re­moved, or in­ter­fered with, in his mil­itary op­er­ations. He has asked that he, the Gov­er­nor, be al­lowed to com­mis­sion of­fi­cers for troops raised in Kansas, as oth­er gov­er­nors of loy­al States do; and I think he is right in this.

He has asked that Gen­er­al Blunt shall not take per­sons charged with civ­il crimes out of the hands of the courts and turn them over to mobs to be hung; and I think he is right in this al­so. He has asked that Gen­er­al Ew­ing’s de­part­ment be ex­tend­ed to in­clude all Kansas; and I have not de­ter­mined whether this is right or not.

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GOV­ER­NOR MOR­TON.

WASH­ING­TON, D. C., Ju­ly 18, 1863.

GOV­ER­NOR O. P. MOR­TON, In­di­anapo­lis:

What do you re­mem­ber about the case of John O. Brown, con­vict­ed of muti­nous con­duct and sen­tenced to death? What do you de­sire about it?

A. LIN­COLN.

TO GOV­ER­NOR PARK­ER

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON

Ju­ly 20, 1863.

HIS EX­CEL­LEN­CY JOEL PARK­ER, Gov­er­nor of New Jer­sey.

DEAR SIR:–Yours of the 15th has been re­ceived, and con­sid­ered by the Sec­re­tary of War and my­self. I was pained to be in­formed this morn­ing by the Provost-​Mar­shal-​Gen­er­al that New Jer­sey is now be­hind twelve thou­sand, ir­re­spec­tive of the draft. I did not have time to as­cer­tain by what rules this was made out; and I shall be very glad if it shall, by any means, prove to be in­cor­rect. He al­so tells me that eight thou­sand will be about the quo­ta of New Jer­sey on the first draft; and the Sec­re­tary of War says the first draft in that State would not be made for some time in any event. As ev­ery man ob­tained oth­er­wise lessens the draft so much, and this may su­per­sede it al­to­geth­er, I hope you will push for­ward your vol­un­teer reg­iments as fast as pos­si­ble.

It is a very del­icate mat­ter to post­pone the draft in one State, be­cause of the ar­gu­ment it fur­nish­es oth­ers to have post­pone­ment al­so. If we could have a rea­son in one case which would be good if pre­sent­ed in all cas­es, we could act up­on it.

I will thank you, there­fore, to in­form me, if you can, by what day, at the ear­li­est, you can promise to have ready to be mus­tered in­to the Unit­ed States ser­vice the eight thou­sand men.

If you can make a re­li­able promise (I mean one which you can re­ly on your­self) of this sort, it will be of great val­ue, if the day is not too re­mote.

I beg you to be as­sured I wish to avoid the dif­fi­cul­ties you dread as much as your­self.

Your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

A. LIN­COLN

TO GEN­ER­AL SCHOFIELD.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON D.C. JU­LY 20, 1863

MA­JOR GEN­ER­AL JOHN M. SCHOFIELD.