The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1863-01-29
H PRESIDENT TO GEN. MCCLELLAN.
WASHINGTON, Jan, 9, 1862.

w
Major General Mcclellan:
My DEAR SIR:-Your dispatches complain
ing that you are not properly sustained, While
they do not offend, pain me very much
BlenKer's division was Withdrawn from you be.
fore you left here. You know the pressure I'M
der which l did it, and as ! thought acquiesced
in it, certainly not without reluctance.
After YOU left | ascertained that less than
10000 unurganized men, without a single held
battery, were all you designed to be left for the
defence Of Washington and Manassas Junction.
part of hem We're to go to Hooker's old po-
sition. Banks corps which was designed for
Manassas junction, was divided and tied up on
the line of Winchester and Strasburg, and
could not leave It without again exposing the
upper Potomac and the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad line.
This presented, or would present when Nc
Dowell and Sumner should be gone, a great
temptation to the enemy 30 turn back from the
Rappahannock and sack Washington. My ex>
plicit direction that Washington should, in the
Judgment Cfal! commanders of corps, be left
entirely secure, had been entirely neglected.
1t is precisely This that caused me to detaln
Mcdowell
| do not forget that | was satisfied with your
arrangement to leave Banks at Manassas juno
ion, but when that arrangement was broken
up, and nothing even substituted for tot course
I was not satisfied. | was constrained to re-
tain something for it myself, and now allow me
to ask, do you think / should permit the line
from Richmond via Manassas, to this city 10
be entirely open except what resistance wonlc
be presented by less than 20,OOO lorgan1zed
troops? This is Il question which the country
will not allow me to evade. .,
There is a curious mystery connected with
the number of troops now with you. | tee
-. go, -, +ba e4b Soviur that Won mad
100000 men with you. | had just obtained
from the Secretary of War a statement, taker
as he said from your own returns, making lOo,
| 900 then with you and en- route to you, NO"
YOU say YOU will have but $1,000 when all er
route to you shall have reached you. How car
this discrepancy of 30, 900 be accounted for
AS to Wood command, | understand it is do
ing tor you precisely what a like number o
: your own would have to do if the command wa
away.
forward to you is with you by this time, and i
so, | think ii is the precise time for you to strlk'
q b}ow. BIZ delay the enemy will readily gan
on ven. That is, he will gain faster by fortlh
cations aud reinforcement than you can by re
,, Inducements alone. And once more let me tel
YOU il is indispensable to you that you strike
blow.
, | am powerless to help you. You will do m
= the justice TO remember INA "l"@J' vs.
, YOU were not going down the bay in search 0
i, a field, instead Of fighting at or near Manassas
= as only shifting and not surmounting a dltil
- Guilty. That we would find some enemy an
= some equal entertainments at either place.
The country will not fail to note, is noEni
{ NOW. that the present hesitation to move upol
the entrenchments of the enemy is but the stor..
! If Manassas repeated. l beg to assure yo
: thai / have never written or spoken in create
J. kindness of feeling than now, or with fulle
n11rnoae to sustain you, SO far as in my mos
: anxious Judgment consistently can, but 20
: 60 oct Yours truly,
] ~ A. LINCOLN.
o,o+bar irnuortant letter from the Presl