NEAR YORKTOWN, April
5, 1862 – 7.30 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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