The Alleghanian. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1859-1865, 1863-02-05
President EEnc0ln On the Fe-
E2i,lsszsar Campaign.


While Maj Gen Hitchcock was under
examination before the Mcdowell Court
of Inquiry on the 10th, the following
letter from the President Was placed before
the Court.
Washington, April 8, 1862,
To Maj Gen. Mcclellan Ny Dear
.Sir-Your dispatches, complaining that
you are t.properly sustained while they
do not offend me, pain me very much
Blenker's division was withdrawn before.
you left here, and you know the pressure
under which did it., and, as | thought,
acquieaced in it, certainly not without
reluctance After you left [ ascertained
that less than 10000 unorganized men,
without field battery, were all you de
signed should be left for the defence Of
Washington and Manassas junction, and,
part of this even was to go to Gen. Hooker's s
old position. Gen. Banks corps, once
designed for Manassas Junction: was
divided and led up on the line of Win
chester and Strasburg, and could not
leave that position without again exposing
the Upper Potomac and the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad.
This presented, or would present, when
M'Doweli and Sumner should lie gone, a
great temptation for the enemy to turn
| back from the Rappahapnock and sack
Washington, My explicit directions,
sustained by the Judgment Of all the com
manders of corps, that Washington should
be left secure, had been entirely neglected
| 1t was precisely this that drove me to de-
| 10 h.t
W as satisfied with your arrangement 70 leave
! Banks at Manassas junction. But when
| that arrangement was broken up, and
nothing was substituted tor it, Of course
was not satisfied. l was constrained to
substitute something for it myself. And
now allow me to ask you, do you really
think | could permit the line from Rich
mond via Manassas junction to this city
| to be entirely open, except what resistance
could be presented by less than 10000
nnorganized troops? This is question
which the country will not allow me TO
evade.
| There is a curious mystery about the
number of troops now with. you. [ tele-
graphed you on the 9th, saying that you
| had over 100 600 with you. | had just
obtained from the Secretary of War a
| statement taken, as he said, from your own
returns, making los ,0O0 then with you
and en route to you. \ on now say you
will have but 50, 600 when all en- route to
YOU shall have reached you. How can
this discrepancy of 80, goo be accounted
for? As to Ger Wool's command /
understand that it is doing precisely what
a number of your own would have to do
| IL
the whole force which has gone forward
to you is with you by this time and if SO,
/ think it is the precise time for you to
strike blow,
BY delay, the enemy will readily gain
Notifications and re.enforcements than you
can oy endorsements alone. And once
more let me tell you, it is indispensable
to you that you strike blow. | AIN pow
erless to help. This you will do me the
justice to remember, was always opposed
to going down the Bay in search of a field,
instead of fighting at or near Manassas,
as only shifting and not surmounting Il
difficulty that we would find the same
enemy and the same or equal intren CHI
ments at either place. The country Will
not fail to note lis noting now-that the
present hesitation to move upon an in
trenched enemy is but the story OF Ma
nassas repeated.
| beg leave to assure you that I have
never written Or spoken to you in greater
kindness Of feeling than now, nor with il
fuller purpose to sustain you SO far as in
my most anxious Judgment [ consistently
can. But, you must act.
Yours, very truly, \. LINCOLN.