George B. McClellan to Thurlow Weed, June 13, 1863

(Private)

OAKLANDS, N. J., June 13, 1863.

MY DEAR SIR:

Your kind note is received.

For what I cannot doubt that you would consider good reasons, I have determined to decline the compliment of presiding over the proposed meeting of Monday next.

I fully concur with you in the conviction that an honorable peace is not now possible, and that the war must be prosecuted to save the Union and the Government, at whatever cost of time and treasure and blood.

I am clear, also, in the conclusion that the policy governing the conduct of the war should be one looking not only to military success, but also to ultimate re-union, and that it should consequently be such as to preserve the rights of all Union-loving citizens, wherever they may be, as far as compatible with military security. My views as to the prosecution of the war remain, substantially, as they have been from the beginning of the contest; these views I have made known officially.

I will endeavor to write you more fully before Monday.

In the meantime believe me to be, in great haste, truly your friend,

GEORGE B. McCLELLAN.

HON. THURLOW WEED, New York.

SOURCE: Allen Thorndike Rice, Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln: By Distinguished Men of His Time, p. xxxv-xxxvi