rld
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
reconnaissance that the battery at Jamestown has been abandoned, and he
again requests that gunboats may be sent up the James River.

If you have tolerable confidence that you can successfully contend with
the Merrimac without the help of the Galena and two accompanying gunboats,
send the Galena and two gunboats up the James River at once. Please report
your action on this to me at once. I shall be found either at General
Wool's headquarters or on board the Miami.

Your obedient servant,

A. LINCOLN.

FURTHER REPRIMAND OF McCLELLAN

TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.

FORT MONROE, VIRGINIA, May 9, 1862

MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:

MY DEAR SIR:--I have just assisted the Secretary of War in framing part of
a despatch to you relating to army corps, which despatch, of course, will
have reached you long before this will. I wish to say a few words to you
privately on this subject. I ordered the army corps organization not only
on the unanimous opinion of the twelve generals whom you had selected and
assigned as generals of divisions, but also on the unanimous opinion of
every military man I could get an opinion from, and every modern military
book, yourself only excepted. Of course, I did not on my own judgment
prete