Monday, February 24, 2014

Major General George B. McClellan to Abraham Lincoln, April 5, 1862 – 7:30 p.m.

NEAR YORKTOWN, April 5, 18627.30 p.m.
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President:

the enemy are in large force along our front, and apparently intend making a determined resistance. A reconnaissance just made by General Barnard shows that their line of works extends across the entire Peninsula from Yorktown to Warwick River. Many of them are very formidable. Deserters say they are being re-enforced daily from Richmond and from Norfolk. Under these circumstances I beg that you will reconsider the order detaching the First Corps from my command. In my deliberate judgment the success of our cause will be imperiled by so greatly reducing my force when it is actually under the fire of the enemy and active operations have commenced. Two or three of my divisions have been under fire of artillery most of the day. I am now of the opinion that I shall have to fight all the available force of the rebels not far from here. Do not force me to do so with diminished numbers. But whatever your decision may be, I will leave nothing undone to obtain success. If you cannot leave me the whole of the First Corps, I urgently ask that I may not lose Franklin and his division.

GEO. B. McCLELLAN,
Major-General.

SOURCES: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 11, Part 3 (Serial No. 14), p. 71

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