Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1878-10-26
TIE TIL. EVENING STAR
Lincoln 10 Mcclellan.

The Philadelphia Press prints the following
leu eStteI, winch, II says, has never been given 10
the public before:
WASHINGTON, April Q, Isss-Major General
iMcCIeadn:-Dear Sir: Your dispatches complain
ing That you are not properly sustained, while
R Rle1 Io not onend me, do pain me very much.
, petore you left here, and you knew the pressure
unoer which did il, and as 1 thought acduieSc-
ter u. LIT IT. certainty not without reluctance AZ
, yer you ieft ascertained that less than 10000
, unoIganlZed men, without a single field battery
were all you designed to be left for the defence
nor, msa shin ana Manassas Junction, and
paIa vi inns even was to go to Gen. Hooker's old
position. Gen. Banks corps, once designed for
manassas junction, was divided and tied up on
could not leave it without again eynosin1 the
Upper Potomac and the Baltimore Ohio rail
road This presented, or would present, when
McDougall and sumner should be gone a great
temptation to the enemy TO turn back from the
Rappahannock and sack Washington. NV ex
plicit order that Washington should, by the
corps, be left entirely secure had been neglect
ed. 1t was precisely this that drove me TO de-
tain Mcdowell. do not forget that was sat
listed with your arrangement TO leave Banks at
Manassas Junction; but when that arrange
ment was broken up, and nothing was SubStitu-
ted for II, OF course was not satisfied. l was
constrained to substitute something for it my
self. Now, allow me to ask, do you really think
l should permit the line from Richmond VIA
Manassas Junction to this city to be entirely
open, except what resistance could be present
ed by less than 20, 900 unorganized troops? This
is question which the country will not allow
me TO evade.
''There is a curious mystery about the num-
Der OF troops now with you. When | tele-
graphed you on the 6th saying you had over one
hundred thousand with you, had Just obtained
from the secretary of War a statement taken,
as ne said, from your own returns, making
1CS,OO0 then with you and en- route TO YOU You
now say you will have but 5000 when all en-
route to you shall have reached you. How can
this discrepancy Of %, 900 be accounted for! AS
10 General WOODS command, / understand IL is
doing precisely for you what a like number of
your own would have to do If that command was
away
~ suppose the whole force which has gone
forward for you is with you by this time and if
So think 1t is the precise time for you to strike
Dlow. BY delay the enemy will relatively gain
upon you; that is, he will gain faster by fortifi-
catlonS and reinfOrcementS than you can by re-
movements alone. And, once more let ME tell
you, 1t is indispensable to you that YOU strike
plow. l am powerleSS to help this. You will
do me the justice to remember1 always insisted
that going down the bay in search of a tield..in-
stead OF lighting at or near Manassas was only
smiling and not surrounding difficulty: that
you would find the same enemy and the same
or equal Entertainments at either place The
country will not fail to note-it is now noting
that the present hesitation to move upon an
1ntrenched enemy IS but the story OF Manassas
repeated. beg to assure you that have never
written you or spoken 10 you in greater kind
ness OF Keeling than now. nor with fuller pur-
pose to sustain you, so far as in my most any-
Gus judgment consistently can; bu- YOU must
act Yours, very truly, A. LINCOLN