FROM CHARLES SUMNER
Senate Chamber, July 5, 1862.
Confidential.
My dear General: . . .[1] I wish you were here to tell the President the true way. In vain will he appeal for troops at the North, so it seems to many of us. I have insisted that the appeal shall be made to the slaves, and the rear-guard of the rebellion be changed into the advance guard of the Union. He said that he would at once, if he did not fear that half the Army would lay down their arms and three other States would join the rebellion. I wish you were here to help. By voice and presence you could do much—very—very much. God bless you! Ever yours.
TO PRESIDENT LINCOLN
Headquarters 3d Div., 11th Corps,
New-Baltimore, Va., Nov. 8, 1862.
Will you, after the great political defeat we have suffered, listen a moment to the words of a true friend who means to serve you faithfully, and in whose judgment you once, perhaps, reposed some confidence?
The defeat of the Administration is owing neither to your proclamations, nor to the financial policy of the Government, nor to a desire of the people to have peace at any price. I can speak openly, for you must know that I am your friend. The defeat of the Administration is the Administration's own fault.
It admitted its professed opponents to its counsels. It placed the Army, now a great power in this Republic, into the hands of its enemies. In all personal questions to be hostile to the party of the Government seemed to be
- ↑ Two sentences about a military correspondence between Schurz and Lincoln, of which part has not been found. See 18 War Records, 378-81, 398, 399.
