The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln
Chapter 163 : The discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer nor the cause th

The discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer nor the cause they defend be imperilled by the profanation of the day or name of the Most High. "At this time of public distress," adopting the words of Was.h.i.+ngton in 1776, "men may find enough to do in the service of G.o.d and their country without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality."

The first general order issued by the Father of his Country after the Declaration of Independence indicates the spirit in which our inst.i.tutions were founded and should ever be defended:

"The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country."

A. LINCOLN.

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL BLAIR

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, November 17,1862.

HON. F. P. BLAIR:

Your brother says you are solicitous to be ordered to join General McLernand. I suppose you are ordered to Helena; this means that you are to form part of McLernand's expedition as it moves down the river; and General McLernand is so informed. I will see General Halleck as to whether the additional force you mention can go with you.

A. LINCOLN.

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL J. A. DIX.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D. C., November 18, 1861.

MAJOR-GENERAL Dix, Fort Monroe:

Please give me your best opinion as to the number of the enemy now at Richmond and also at Petersburg.

A. LINCOLN.

TO GOVERNOR SHEPLEY.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, November 21, 1862.

HON. G. F. SHEPLEY.

DEAR SIR:--Dr. Kennedy, bearer of this, has some apprehension that Federal officers not citizens of Louisiana may be set up as candidates for Congress in that State. In my view there could be no possible object in such an election. We do not particularly need members of Congress from there to enable us to get along with legislation here. What we do want is the conclusive evidence that respectable citizens of Louisiana are willing to be members of Congress and to swear support to the Const.i.tution, and that other respectable citizens there are willing to vote for them and send them. To send a parcel of Northern men here as representatives, elected, as would be understood (and perhaps really so), at the point of the bayonet, would be disgusting and outrageous; and were I a member of Congress here, I would vote against admitting any such man to a seat.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN,

ORDER PROHIBITING THE EXPORT OF ARMS AND MUNITIONS OF WAR.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WAs.h.i.+NGTON,

November 21, 1862.

Ordered, That no arms, ammunition, or munitions of war be cleared or allowed to be exported from the United States until further orders. That any clearance for arms, ammunition, or munitions of war issued heretofore by the Treasury Department be vacated, if the articles have not pa.s.sed without the United States, and the articles stopped. That the Secretary of War hold possession of the arms, etc., recently seized by his order at Rouse's Point, bound for Canada.

A. LINCOLN.

DELAYING TACTICS OF GENERALS

TO GENERAL N. P. BANKS.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, November 22, 1862.

MY DEAR GENERAL BANKS:--Early last week you left me in high hope with your a.s.surance that you would be off with your expedition at the end of that week, or early in this. It is now the end of this, and I have just been overwhelmed and confounded with the sight of a requisition made by you which, I am a.s.sured, cannot be filled and got off within an hour short of two months. I enclose you a copy of the requisition, in some hope that it is not genuine--that you have never seen it. My dear General, this expanding and piling up of impedimenta has been, so far, almost our ruin, and will be our final ruin if it is not abandoned. If you had the articles of this requisition upon the wharf, with the necessary animals to make them of any use, and forage for the animals, you could not get vessels together in two weeks to carry the whole, to say nothing of your twenty thousand men; and, having the vessels, you could not put the cargoes aboard in two weeks more. And, after all, where you are going you have no use for them. When you parted with me you had no such ideas in your mind.

I know you had not, or you could not have expected to be off so soon as you said. You must get back to something like the plan you had then, or your expedition is a failure before you start. You must be off before Congress meets. You would be better off anywhere, and especially where you are going, for not having a thousand wagons doing nothing but hauling forage to feed the animals that draw them, and taking at least two thousand men to care for the wagons and animals, who otherwise might be two thousand good soldiers. Now, dear General, do not think this is an ill-natured letter; it is the very reverse. The simple publication of this requisition would ruin you.

Very truly your friend,

A. LINCOLN.

TO CARL SCHURZ.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, November 24, 1862.

GENERAL CARL SCHURZ.

MY DEAR SIR--I have just received and read your letter of the 20th. The purport of it is that we lost the late elections and the administration is failing because the war is unsuccessful, and that I must not flatter myself that I am not justly to blame for it. I certainly know that if the war fails the administration fails, and that I will be blamed for it, whether I deserve it or not. And I ought to be blamed if I could do better. You think I could do better; therefore you blame me already.

I think I could not do better; therefore I blame you for blaming me. I understand you now to be willing to accept the help of men who are not Republicans, provided they have "heart in it." Agreed. I want no others.

But who is to be the judge of hearts, or of "heart in it"? If I must discard my own judgment and take yours, I must also take that of others and by the time I should reject all I should be advised to reject, I should have none left, Republicans or others not even yourself. For be a.s.sured, my dear sir, there are men who have "heart in it" that think you are performing your part as poorly as you think I am performing mine. I certainly have been dissatisfied with the slowness of Buell and McClellan; but before I relieved them I had great fears I should not find successors to them who would do better; and I am sorry to add that I have seen little since to relieve those fears.

I do not see clearly the prospect of any more rapid movements. I fear we shall at last find out that the difficulty is in our case rather than in particular generals. I wish to disparage no one certainly not those who sympathize with me; but I must say I need success more than I need sympathy, and that I have not seen the so much greater evidence of getting success from my sympathizers than from those who are denounced as the contrary. It does seem to me that in the field the two cla.s.ses have been very much alike in what they have done and what they have failed to do.

In sealing their faith with their blood, Baker and Lyon and Bohien and Richardson, Republicans, did all that men could do; but did they any more than Kearny and Stevens and Reno and Mansfield, none of whom were Republicans, and some at least of whom have been bitterly and repeatedly denounced to me as secession sympathizers? I will not perform the ungrateful task of comparing cases of failure.