Thursday, February 15, 2018

Edwin M. Stanton to Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant, September 11, 1864 – 7:55 p.m.

WASHINGTON, September 11, 1864 — 7.55 p.m.
Lieutenant-General GRANT:

It is not designed by this department to delay the draft a single day after the credits are made up and quota ascertained. The Provost-Marshal-General has been directed to lose no time in that work. It is represented that the first recruits were a hard lot, but that recently the volunteers are equal to any that have taken the field during the war. The local authorities have been slack in paying their bounties and this has occasioned some delay. I would be glad if you would send me a telegram for publication, urging the necessity of immediately filling up the army by draft. The most difficulty is likely to be in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, from the desire of candidates to retain their men until after the election. We have not got a single regiment from Indiana. Morton came here specially to have the draft postponed, bur was peremptorily refused. But the personal interest to, retain men until after the election requires every effort to procure troops in that State, even by draft. Illinois is much the same way. Not a regiment or even company there has been organized. A special call from you would aid the department in overcoming the local inertia and personal interests that favor delay.

EDWIN M. STANTON,       
Secretary of War.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 42, Part 2 (Serial No. 88), p. 783-4

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