ll against me.
The quicker you send, the fewer you will have to send. Time is everything.
Please act in view of this. The enemy having given up Corinth, it is not
wonderful that he is thereby enabled to check us for a time at Richmond.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.

WAR DEPARTMENT WASHINGTON, D.C., JULY 3, 1862

MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN:

Yours of 5.30 yesterday is just received. I am satisfied that yourself,
officers, and men have done the best you could. All accounts say better
fighting was never done. Ten thousand thanks for it.

On the 28th we sent General Burnside an order to send all the force he
could spare to you. We then learned that you had requested him to go to
Goldsborough; upon which we said to him our order was intended for your
benefit, and we did not wish to be in conflict with your views.

We hope you will have help from him soon. Today we have ordered General
Hunter to send you all he can spare. At last advices General Halleck
thinks he cannot send reinforcements without endangering all he has
gained.

A. LINCOLN, President

TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.

WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON CITY, D.C., July 4, 1862.

MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:

I understand your position as stated in your letter and by General Marcy.
To reinforce you so as to enable you to resume the offensive within a
month, or even six weeks, is impossible. In addition to that arrived and
now arriving from the Potomac (about 10,000 men, I suppose), and about
10,000 I hope you will have from Burnside very soon, and about 5000 from
Hunter a little later, I do not see how I can send you another man within
a month. Under these circumstances the defensive for the present must be
your only care. Save the army first, where you are, if you can; secondly,
by removal, if you must. You, on the ground, must be the judge as to which
you will attempt, and of the means for effecting it. I but give it as my
opinion that with the aid of the gunboats and the reinforcements mentioned
above you can hold your present position--provided, and so long as,
you can keep the James River open below you. If you are not tolerably
confident you can keep the James River open, you had better remove as soon
as possible. I do not remember that you have expressed any apprehension as
to the danger of having your communication cut on the river below you, yet
I do not suppose it can have escaped your attention.

You