Friday, January 31, 2014

Abraham Lincoln to Major General George B. McClellan, February 3, 1862

EXECUTIVE MANSION,
Washington, February 3, 1862.

MY DEAR SIR: You and I have distinct and different plans for a movement of the Army of the Potomac – yours to be down the Chesapeake, up the Rappahannock to Urbana, and across land to the terminus of the railroad on the York River; mine to move directly to a point on the railroads southwest of Manassas.*

If you will give me satisfactory answers to the following questions I shall gladly yield my plan to yours:

1st.  Does not your plan involve a greatly larger expenditure of time and money than mine?
2d.  Wherein is a victory more certain by your plan than mine?
3d.  Wherein is a victory more valuable by your plan than mine?
4th. In fact, would it not be less valuable in this, that it would break no great line of the enemy's communications, while mine would?
5th.  In case of disaster, would not a retreat be more difficult by your plan than mine?

Yours, truly,
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Major-General McCLELLAN.
__________

* For the President’s memorandum accompanying this note, see under same date in “correspondence, etc., post.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 5 (Serial No. 5), p. 41-2

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