re
Congress meets. You would be better off anywhere, and especially where
you are going, for not having a thousand wagons doing nothing but hauling
forage to feed the animals that draw them, and taking at least two
thousand men to care for the wagons and animals, who otherwise might be
two thousand good soldiers. Now, dear General, do not think this is an
ill-natured letter; it is the very reverse. The simple publication of this
requisition would ruin you.

Very truly your friend,

A. LINCOLN.

TO CARL SCHURZ.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, November 24, 1862.

GENERAL CARL SCHURZ.

MY DEAR SIR--I have just received and read your letter of the 20th. The
purport of it is that we lost the late elections and the administration
is failing because the war is unsuccessful, and that I must not flatter
myself that I am not justly to blame for it. I certainly know that if
the war fails the administration fails, and that I will be blamed for
it, whether I deserve it or not. And I ought to be blamed if I could do
better. You think I could do better; therefore you blame me already.
I think I could not do better; therefore I blame you for blaming me. I
understand you now to be willing to accept the help of men who are not
Republicans, provided they have "heart in it." Agreed. I want no others.
But who is to be the judge of hearts, or of "heart in it"? If I must
discard my own judgment and take yours, I must also take that of others
and by the time I should reject all I should be advised to reject, I
should have none left, Republicans or others not even yourself. For be
assured, my dear sir, there are men who have "heart in it" that think you
are performing your part as poorly as you think I am performing mine. I
certainly have been dissatisfied with the slowness of Buell and McClellan;
but before I relieved them I had great fears I should not find successors
to them who would do better; and I am sorry to add that I have seen little
since to relieve those fears.

I do not see clearly the prospect of any more rapid movements. I fear we
shall at last find out that the difficulty is in our case rather than in
particular generals. I wish to disparage no one certainly not those
who sympathize with me; but I must say I need success more than I need
sympathy, and that I have not seen the so much greater evidence of getting
success from my sympathizers than from those who are denounced as the
contrary. It does seem to me tha