l for Parrott guns from Washington alarms me, chiefly because it
argues indefinite procrastination. Is anything to be done?

A. LINCOLN.

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.

WAR DEPARTMENT, MAY 1, 1862

MAJOR-GENERAL HALLECK, Pittsburgh Landing, Tennessee:

I am pressed by the Missouri members of Congress to give General Schofield
independent command in Missouri. They insist that for want of this their
local troubles gradually grow worse. I have forborne, so far, for fear of
interfering with and embarrassing your operations. Please answer telling
me whether anything, and what, I can do for them without injuriously
interfering with you.

A. LINCOLN.

RESPONSE TO EVANGELICAL LUTHERANS, MAY 6, 1862

GENTLEMEN:--I welcome here the representatives of the Evangelical
Lutherans of the United States. I accept with gratitude their assurances
of the sympathy and support of that enlightened, influential, and loyal
class of my fellow citizens in an important crisis which involves, in my
judgment, not only the civil and religious liberties of our own dear land,
but in a large degree the civil and religious liberties of mankind in many
countries and through many ages. You well know, gentlemen, and the world
knows, how reluctantly I accepted this issue of battle forced upon me on
my advent to this place by the internal enemies of our country. You all
know, the world knows, the forces and the resources the public agents have
brought into employment to sustain a government against which there has
been brought not one complaint of real injury committed against society
at home or abroad. You all may recollect that in taking up the sword thus
forced into our hands this government appealed to the prayers of the pious
and the good, and declared that it placed its whole dependence on the
favor of God. I now humbly and reverently, in your presence, reiterate the
acknowledgment of that dependence, not doubting that, if it shall please
the Divine Being who determines the destinies of nations, this shall
remain a united people, and that they will, humbly seeking the divine
guidance, make their prolonged national existence a source of new benefits
to themselves and their successors, and to all classes and conditions of
mankind.

TELEGRAM TO FLAG-OFFICER L. M. GOLDSBOROUGH.

FORT MONROE, VIRGINIA, MAY 7, 1862

FLAG-OFFICER GOLDSBOROUGH.

SIR:--Major-General McClellan telegraphs that he has ascertained by a
recon