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during the pleasure of the President of the United States for the time being.

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this 22d day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and in the eighty-sixth year of the independence of the United States. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

LETTER TO GEN. MCCLELLAN, APRIL 9, 1862.

My Dear Sir.—Your dispatches, complaining that you are not properly sustained, while they do not offend me, do pain me very much.

Blenker's division was withdrawn from you before you left here, and you know the pressure under which I did it, and, as I thought, acquiesced in it, certainly not without reluctance.

After you left I ascertained that less than twenty thousand unorganized men, without a single field battery, were all you designed to be left for the defense of Washington and Manassas Junction; and part of this even was to go to General Hooker's old position. General Banks's corps, once designed for Manassas Junction, was diverted and tied upon the line of Winchester and Strasburg, and could not leave it without again exposing the upper Potomac, and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. This presented (or would present, when McDowell and Sumner should be gone) a great temptation to the enemy to turn back from the Rappahannock and sack Washington. My explicit order that Washington should, by the judgment of all the commanders of army corps, be left en

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gain faster, by fortifications and re-inforcements, than you can by re-inforcements alone.

And once more let me tell you it is indispensable to you that you strike a blow. I am powerless to help this. You will do me the justice to remember I always insisted that going down the bay in search of a field, instead of fighting at or near Manassas, was only shifting, and not surmounting, a difficulty; that we would find the same enemy, and the same or equal intrenchments, at either place. The country will not fail to note-is now noting-that the present hesitation to move upon an intrenched enemy is but the story of Manassas repeated.

I beg to assure you that I have never written you, or spoken to you, in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you, so far as in my most anxious judgment, I consistently can. But you must act. Yours, very truly,

A. LINCOLN.

PROCLAMATION, APRIL 10, 1862.

It has pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe signal victories to the land and naval forces engaged in suppressing an internal rebellion, and at the same time to avert from our country the dangers of foreign intervention and invasion.

It is therefore recommended to the people of the United States, that at their next weekly assemblages in their accustomed places of public worship, which shall occur after the notice of this proclamation shall have been received, they especially acknowledge and render thanks to our Heavenly Father for these in

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recognized and practically applied in the act. In the matter of compensation, it is provided that claims may be presented within ninety days from the passage of the act, “but not thereafter;" and there is no saving for minors, femmes covert, insane, or absent persons. I presume this is an omission by mere oversight, and I recommend that it be supplied by an amendatory or supplemental act. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

TO GOVERNOR ANDREW JOHNSON, NASHVILLE, TENN. War Department, April 27, 1862.

Your dispatch of yesterday just received, as also, in due course, was your former one. The former one was sent to General Halleck, and we have his answer, by which I have no doubt he (General Halleck) is in communication with you before this. General Halleck understands better than we can here, and he must be allowed to control in that quarter.

If you are not in communication with Halleck, telegraph him at once, freely and frankly.

A. LINCOLN.

TO FLAG OFFICER GOLDSBOROUGH.

Fort Monroe, Virginia, May 7, 1862.

Sir:-Major-General McClellan telegraphs that he has ascertained, by a reconnaissance, that the battery at Jamestown has been abandoned, and he again requests that gun-boats may be sent up the James river. If you have tolerable confidence that you can successfully contend with the Merrimac without the help of the Galena and two accompanying gun-boats, send

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