The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, v7

MY DEAR GENERAL SHERMAN:–Many, many thanks for your...

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 fur­ther than to ac­qui­esce.

And tak­ing the work of Gen­er­al 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 safe if I leave Gen­er­al Grant and your­self to de­cide.

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

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO OF­FI­CER IN COM­MAND AT LEX­ING­TON. EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, De­cem­ber 27, 1864.

OF­FI­CER IN COM­MAND at Lex­ing­ton, Ky.:

If with­in your pow­er send me the par­tic­ulars of the caus­es for which Lieu­tenant-​Gov­er­nor Ja­cob was ar­rest­ed and sent away.

A. LIN­COLN.

TO J. MACLEAN.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, De­cem­ber 27, 1864.

Dr. JOHN MACLEAN:

MY DEAR SIR:–I have the hon­or to ac­knowl­edge the re­cep­tion of your note of the twen­ti­eth of De­cem­ber, con­vey­ing the an­nounce­ment that the Trustees of the Col­lege of New Jer­sey had con­ferred up­on me the de­gree of Doc­tor of Laws.

The as­sur­ance con­veyed by this high com­pli­ment, that the course of the Gov­ern­ment which I rep­re­sent, has re­ceived the ap­proval of a body of gen­tle­men of such char­ac­ter and in­tel­li­gence, in this time of pub­lic tri­al, is most grate­ful to me.

Thought­ful men must feel that the fate of civ­iliza­tion up­on this con­ti­nent is in­volved in the is­sue of our con­test. Among the most grat­ify­ing proofs of this con­vic­tion is the hearty de­vo­tion ev­ery­where ex­hib­it­ed by our schools and col­leges to the na­tion­al cause.

I am most thank­ful if my labors have seemed to con­duct to the preser­va­tion of those in­sti­tu­tions, un­der which alone we can ex­pect good gov­ern­ment and in its train sound learn­ing, and the progress of the lib­er­al arts.

I am, sir, very tru­ly, your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO OF­FI­CER IN COM­MAND AT NASHVILLE.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, De­cem­ber 28, 1864.

OF­FI­CER IN COM­MAND at Nashville, Tenn.:

Sus­pend ex­ecu­tion of James R. Mal­lo­ry, for six weeks from Fri­day the thir­ti­eth of this month, which time I have giv­en his friends to make proof, if they can, up­on cer­tain points.

A. LIN­COLN,

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL U. S. GRANT.

WASH­ING­TON, D. C., De­cem­ber 28, 1864. 5.30 p.m.

LIEU­TENANT-​GEN­ER­AL GRANT, City Point, Va.:

If there be no ob­jec­tion, please tell me what you now un­der­stand of the Wilm­ing­ton ex­pe­di­tion, present and prospec­tive.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL BUT­LER.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, De­cem­ber 29, 1864.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL BUT­LER:

There is a man in Com­pa­ny I, Eleventh Con­necti­cut Vol­un­teers, First Brigade, Third Di­vi­sion, Twen­ty-​fourth Army Corps, at Chapin’s Farm, Va.; un­der the as­sumed name of William Stan­ley, but whose re­al name is Frank R. Judd, and who is un­der ar­rest, and prob­ably about to be tried for de­ser­tion. He is the son of our present min­is­ter to Prus­sia, who is a close per­son­al friend of Sen­ator Trum­bull and my­self. We are not will­ing for the boy to be shot, but we think it as well that his tri­al go reg­ular­ly on, sus­pend­ing ex­ecu­tion un­til fur­ther or­der from me and re­port­ing to me.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO COLONEL WARN­ER.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, De­cem­ber 30, 1864.

COLONEL WARN­ER, In­di­anapo­lis, Ind.:

It is said that you were on the court-​mar­tial that tried John Lennon, and that you are dis­posed to ad­vise his be­ing par­doned and sent to his reg­iment. If this be true, tele­graph me to that ef­fect at once.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO J. WILLIAMS.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 4, 1865.

JOHN WILLIAMS, Spring­field, Ill.:

Let Trum­bo’s sub­sti­tute be reg­ular­ly mus­tered in, send me the ev­idence that it is done and I will then dis­charge Trum­bo.

A. LIN­COLN.

MES­SAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REP­RE­SEN­TA­TIVES.

WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 5, 1865.

TO THE HOUSE OF REP­RE­SEN­TA­TIVES OF THE UNIT­ED STATES:

I here­with re­turn to your hon­or­able body, in which it orig­inat­ed, a “joint res­olu­tion to cor­rect cer­tain cler­ical er­rors in the in­ter­nal rev­enue act,” with­out my ap­proval.

My rea­son for so do­ing is that I am in­formed that this joint res­olu­tion was pre­pared dur­ing the last mo­ments of the last ses­sion of Congress for the pur­pose of cor­rect­ing cer­tain er­rors of ref­er­ence in the in­ter­nal rev­enue act, which were dis­cov­ered on an ex­am­ina­tion of an of­fi­cial copy pro­cured from the State De­part­ment a few hours on­ly be­fore the ad­journ­ment. It passed the House and went to the Sen­ate, where a vote was tak­en up­on it, but by some ac­ci­dent it was not pre­sent­ed to the Pres­ident of the Sen­ate for his sig­na­ture.

Since the ad­journ­ment of the last ses­sion of Congress, oth­er er­rors of a kind sim­ilar to those which this res­olu­tion was de­signed to cor­rect, have been dis­cov­ered in the law, and it is now thought most ex­pe­di­ent to in­clude all the nec­es­sary cor­rec­tions in one act or res­olu­tion.

The at­ten­tion of the prop­er com­mit­tee of the House has, I am in­formed, been al­ready di­rect­ed to the prepa­ra­tion of a bill for this pur­pose.

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

TO GEN­ER­AL U. S. GRANT.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 5, 1865.

LIEU­TENANT-​GEN­ER­AL GRANT, City Point, Va.:

Richard T. Ja­cob, Lieu­tenant-​Gov­er­nor of Ken­tucky, is at the Spotswood House, in Rich­mond, un­der an or­der of Gen­er­al Bur­bridge not to re­turn to Ken­tucky. Please com­mu­ni­cate leave to him to pass our lines, and come to me here at Wash­ing­ton.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL GRANT.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION,

WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 6, 1865, LIEU­TENANT-​GEN­ER­AL GRANT, City Point:

If there is a man at City Point by the name of Wa­ter­man Thorn­ton who is in trou­ble about de­ser­tion, please have his case briefly stat­ed to me and do not let him be ex­ecut­ed mean­time.

A. LIN­COLN.

MES­SAGE TO CONGRESS,

WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 9, 1865.