EXECUTIVE MANSION,
Washington, November
22, 1862.
MY DEAR GENERAL BANKS: Early last week you left me in high
hope with your assurance 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 assured, cannot be filled and got off within an hour short of two months. I
inclose 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 20,000 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 2,000 men to care for the wagons and animals, who
otherwise might be 2,000 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.
SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of
the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series III,
Volume 2 (Serial No. 123), p. 862
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