4.

MAJOR-GENERAL SHERMAN, near Atlanta, Ga.:

If the Government should purchase, on its own account, cotton northward of
you, and on the line of your communications, would it be an inconvenience
to you, or detriment to the military service, for it to come to the north
on the railroad?

A. LINCOLN.

INTERVIEW WITH JOHN T. MILLS,

AUGUST [15?], 1864.

"Mr. President," said Governor Randall, "why can't you seek seclusion, and
play hermit for a fortnight? It would reinvigorate you."

"Ah," said the President, "two or three weeks would do me no good. I
cannot fly from my thoughts--my solicitude for this great country follows
me wherever I go. I do not think it is personal vanity or ambition, though
I am not free from these infirmities, but I cannot but feel that the
weal or woe of this great nation will be decided in November. There is no
program offered by any wing of the Democratic party but that must result
in the permanent destruction of the Union."

"But, Mr. President, General McClellan is in favor of crushing out this
rebellion by force. He will be the Chicago candidate."

"Sir, the slightest knowledge of arithmetic will prove to any man that
the rebel armies cannot be destroyed by Democratic strategy. It would
sacrifice all the white men of the North to do it. There are now in
the service of the United States nearly one hundred and fifty thousand
able-bodied colored men, most of them under arms, defending and acquiring
Union territory. The Democratic strategy demands that these forces be
disbanded, and that the masters be conciliated by restoring them to
slavery. The black men who now assist Union prisoners to escape are to be
converted into our enemies, in the vain hope of gaining the good-will of
their masters. We shall have to fight two nations instead of one.

"You cannot conciliate the South if you guarantee to them ultimate
success; and the experience of the present war proves their success is
inevitable if you fling the compulsory labor of millions of black men
into their side of the scale. Will you give our enemies such military
advantages as insure success, and then depend on coaxing, flattery, and
concession to get them back into the Union? Abandon all the posts now
garrisoned by black men, take one hundred and fifty thousand men from our
side and put them in the battle-field or corn-field against us, and we
would be compelled to abandon the war in three weeks.

"We have to hold terr