The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, v6

MY DEAR GENERAL:–I have received and read your letter of...

I think the sug­ges­tion you make, of dis­con­tin­uing pro­ceed­ings against Mr. Mc­Kee, a very prop­er one. While I ad­mit that there is an ap­par­ent im­pro­pri­ety in the pub­li­ca­tion of the let­ter men­tioned, with­out my con­sent or yours, it is still a case where no evil could re­sult, and which I am en­tire­ly will­ing to over­look.

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL J. M. SCHOFIELD

WASH­ING­TON, D.C. JU­LY 22, 1863

MA­JOR GEN­ER­AL SCHOFIELD, St. Louis, Mo.:

The fol­low­ing despatch has been placed in my hands. Please look to the sub­ject of it.

LEX­ING­TON, Mo., JU­LY 21, 1863 HON. S C. POMEROY: Un­der Or­ders No.63 the sher­iff is ar­rest­ing slaves of rebels in­side our lines, and re­turn­ing them in great num­bers. Can he do it? An­swer. GOULD.

A. LIN­COLN

TO POST­MAS­TER-​GEN­ER­AL BLAIR

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, JU­LY 24, 1863.

HON. POST­MAS­TER-​GEN­ER­AL

SIR:-Yes­ter­day lit­tle in­dorse­ments of mine went to you in two cas­es of post­mas­ter­ships sought for wid­ows whose hus­bands have fall­en in the bat­tles of this war. These cas­es oc­cur­ring on the same day brought me to re­flect more at­ten­tive­ly than I had be­fore done, as to what is fair­ly due from us here­in the dis­pens­ing of pa­tron­age to­ward the men who, by fight­ing our bat­tles, bear the chief bur­den of serv­ing our coun­try. My con­clu­sion is that, oth­er claims and qual­ifi­ca­tions be­ing equal, they have the bet­ter right and this is es­pe­cial­ly ap­pli­ca­ble to the dis­abled and the sol­dier, de­ceased sol­dier’s fam­ily.

Your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

A. LIN­COLN

TO SEC­RE­TARY OF THE NAVY.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Ju­ly 25, 1863.

HON. SEC­RE­TARY OF THE NAVY.

SIR:–Cer­tain mat­ters have come to my no­tice, and con­sid­ered by me, which in­duce me to be­lieve that it will con­duce to the pub­lic in­ter­est for you to add to the gen­er­al in­struc­tions giv­en to our naval com­man­ders in re­la­tion to con­tra­band trade propo­si­tions sub­stan­tial­ly as fol­lows, to wit:

First. You will avoid the re­al­ity, and as far as pos­si­ble the ap­pear­ance, of us­ing any neu­tral port to watch neu­tral ves­sels and then to dart out and seize them on their de­par­ture.

NOTE.–Com­plaint is made that this has been prac­ticed at the port of St Thomas, which prac­tice, if it ex­ists, is dis­ap­proved and must cease.

Sec­ond. You will not in any case de­tain the crew of a cap­tured neu­tral ves­sel or any oth­er sub­ject of a neu­tral pow­er on board such ves­sel, as pris­on­ers of war or oth­er­wise, ex­cept the small num­ber nec­es­sary as wit­ness­es in the prize court.

NOTE.-The prac­tice here for­bid­den is al­so charged to ex­ist, which, if true, is dis­ap­proved and must cease.

My dear sir, it is not in­tend­ed to be in­sin­uat­ed that you have been re­miss in the per­for­mance of the ar­du­ous and re­spon­si­ble du­ties of your de­part­ment, which, I take plea­sure in af­firm­ing, has in your hands been con­duct­ed with ad­mirable suc­cess. Yet, while your sub­or­di­nates are al­most of ne­ces­si­ty brought in­to an­gry col­li­sion with the sub­jects of for­eign states, the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of those states and your­self do not come in­to im­me­di­ate con­tact for the pur­pose of keep­ing the peace, in spite of such col­li­sions. At that point there is an ul­ti­mate and heavy re­spon­si­bil­ity up­on me.

What I pro­pose is in strict ac­cor­dance with in­ter­na­tion­al law, and is there­fore un­ob­jec­tion­able; whilst, if it does no oth­er good, it will con­tribute to sus­tain a con­sid­er­able por­tion of the present British min­istry in their places, who, if dis­placed, are sure to be re­placed by oth­ers more un­fa­vor­able to us.

Your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN

LET­TER TO GOV­ER­NOR PARK­ER.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON,

Ju­ly 25, 1863.

HIS EX­CEL­LEN­CY GOV­ER­NOR JOEL PARK­ER.

SIR:–Yours of the 21st is re­ceived, and I have tak­en time and con­sid­ered and dis­cussed the sub­ject with the Sec­re­tary of War and Provost-​Mar­shal Gen­er­al, in or­der, if pos­si­ble, to make you a more fa­vor­able an­swer than I fi­nal­ly find my­self able to do.

It is a vi­tal point with us to not have a spe­cial stip­ula­tion with the gov­er­nor of any one State, be­cause it would breed trou­ble in many, if not all, oth­er States; and my idea was when I wrote you, as it still is, to get a point of time to which we could wait, on the rea­son that we were not ready our­selves to pro­ceed, and which might en­able you to raise the quo­ta of your State, in whole, or in large part, with­out the draft. The points of time you fix are much far­ther off than I had hoped. We might have got along in the way I have in­di­cat­ed for twen­ty, or pos­si­bly thir­ty, days. As it stands, the best I can say is that ev­ery vol­un­teer you will present us with­in thir­ty days from this date, fit and ready to be mus­tered in­to the Unit­ed States ser­vice, on the usu­al terms, shall be pro tan­to an abate­ment of your quo­ta of the draft. That quo­ta I can now state at eight thou­sand sev­en hun­dred and eighty-​three (8783). No draft from New Jer­sey, oth­er than for the above quo­ta, will be made be­fore an ad­di­tion­al draft, com­mon to [all] the States, shall be re­quired; and I may add that if we get well through with this draft, I en­ter­tain a strong hope that any fur­ther one may nev­er be need­ed. This ex­pres­sion of hope, how­ev­er, must not be con­strued in­to a promise.

As to con­duct­ing the draft by town­ships, I find it would re­quire such a waste of la­bor al­ready done, and such an ad­di­tion­al amount of it, and such a loss of time, as to make it, I fear, in­ad­mis­si­ble.

Your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

A. LIN­COLN.

P. S.–Since writ­ing the above, get­ting ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion, I am en­abled to say that the draft may be made in sub­dis­tricts, as the en­rol­ment has been made, or is in pro­cess of mak­ing. This will amount prac­ti­cal­ly to draft­ing by town­ships, as the en­roll­ment sub­dis­tricts are gen­er­al­ly about the ex­tent of town­ships. A.L.

To GEN­ER­AL G. G. MEADE. (Pri­vate.)

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Ju­ly 27, 1863.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL MEADE:

I have not thrown Gen­er­al Hook­er away; and there­fore I would like to know whether it would be agree­able to you, all things con­sid­ered, for him to take a corps un­der you, if he him­self is will­ing to do so. Write me in per­fect free­dom, with the as­sur­ance that I will not sub­ject you to any em­bar­rass­ment by mak­ing your let­ter or its con­tents known to any one. I wish to know your wish­es be­fore I de­cide whether to break the sub­ject to him. Do not lean a hair’s breadth against your own feel­ings, or your judg­ment of the pub­lic ser­vice, on the idea of grat­ify­ing me.

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL A. B. BURN­SIDE.

WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON, Ju­ly 27, 1863.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL BURN­SIDE, Cincin­nati, O.:

Let me ex­plain. In Gen­er­al Grant’s first despatch af­ter the fall of Vicks­burg, he said, among oth­er things, he would send the Ninth Corps to you. Think­ing it would be pleas­ant to you, I asked the Sec­re­tary of War to tele­graph you the news. For some rea­sons nev­er men­tioned to us by Gen­er­al Grant, they have not been sent, though we have seen out­side in­ti­ma­tions that they took part in the ex­pe­di­tion against Jack­son. Gen­er­al Grant is a co­pi­ous work­er and fight­er, but a very mea­ger writ­er or tele­gra­pher. No doubt he changed his pur­pose in re­gard to the Ninth Corps for some suf­fi­cient rea­son, but has for­got­ten to no­ti­fy us of it.

A. LIN­COLN.

TO GEN­ER­AL H. W. HAL­LECK.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, Ju­ly 29, 1863

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL HAL­LECK:

See­ing Gen­er­al Meade’s despatch of yes­ter­day to your­self caus­es me to fear that he sup­pos­es the Gov­ern­ment here is de­mand­ing of him to bring on a gen­er­al en­gage­ment with Lee as soon as pos­si­ble. I am claim­ing no such thing of him. In fact, my judg­ment is against it; which judg­ment, of course, I will yield if yours and his are the con­trary. If he could not safe­ly en­gage Lee at Williamsport, it seems ab­surd to sup­pose he can safe­ly en­gage him now, when he has scarce­ly more than two thirds of the force he had at Williamsport, while it must be that Lee has been re­in­forced. True, I de­sired Gen­er­al Meade to pur­sue Lee across the Po­tomac, hop­ing, as has proved true, that he would there­by clear the Bal­ti­more and Ohio Rail­road, and get some ad­van­tages by ha­rass­ing him on his re­treat. These be­ing past, I am un­will­ing he should now get in­to a gen­er­al en­gage­ment on the im­pres­sion that we here are press­ing him, and I shall be glad for you to so in­form him, un­less your own judg­ment is against it.

Yours tru­ly, A. LIN­COLN.

H. W. HAL­LECK, Gen­er­al-​in-​Chief.

TO SEC­RE­TARY STAN­TON.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Ju­ly 29, 1863

HON. SEC­RE­TARY OF WAR.