to add, that I have seen little since to relieve those fears. I do not clearly see 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 that in the field the two classes have been very much alike, in what they have done, and what they have failed to do. In sealing their faith with their blood, Baker, an[d] Lyon, and Bohlen, and Richardson, republicans, did all that men could do; but did they any more than Kearney, and Stevens, and Reno, and Mansfield, none of whom were republicans, and some, at least of whom, have been bitterly, and repeatedly, denounced to me as secession sympathizers? I will not perform the ungrateful task of comparing cases of failure.
In answer to your question ``Has it not been publicly stated in the newspapers, and apparantly proved as a fact, that from the commencement of the war, the enemy was continually supplied with information by some of the confidential subordinates of as important an officer as Adjutant General Thomas?'' I must say ``no'' so far as my knowledge extends. And I add that if you can give any tangible evidence upon that subject, I will thank you to come to the City and do so. Very truly Your friend A. LINCOLN
Annotation
[1] ALS, DLC-Schurz Papers. On November 20, Schurz replied to Lincoln's communication of November 10, supra, in part as follows:
``I fear you entertain too favorable a view of the causes of our defeat in the elections. . . .
``Whatever proportion of Republicans may have entered the army---if the administration had succeeded in preserving its hold upon the masses, your majorities would . . . have put the majorities of 1860 into the shade. . . . But the general confidence and enthusiasm yielded to general disappointment, and . . . too many Republicans . . . either voted against you or withheld their votes. I know this to be a fact. . . . That some of our newspapers disparaged and vilified the administration may be true. . . . But however that may be, I ask you . . . what power would there have been in newspaper-talk . . . had the administration been able to set up against it the evidence of great successes? . . .
``I am far from presuming to blame you for having placed old democrats into high military positions. . . . But it was unfortunate that you sustained them . . . after they had been found failing;---failing not only in a political but also in a military sense. Was I really wrong in saying that the principal management of the war had been in the hands of your opponents? Or will perhaps anybody assert, that such men as McClellan and Buell and Halleck have the least sympathy with you or your views and principles?---or that their efficiency as military leaders has offered a compensation for their deficiency of sympathy, since the first has in 18 months succeeded in effecting literally nothing except the consumption of our resources with the largest and best appointed army this country ever saw;---since the second by his criminal tardiness and laxity endangered even