Annotation
[1] ALS, CSmH. Major General Hunter's endorsement on the envelope containing Lincoln's letter is as follows: ``The President in reply to my `ugly letter.'--- This letter was kept on his table for more than a month, and then sent by a private conveyance, with directions to hand it to me only when I was in a good humor!!!!.---'' Hunter's letter of December 23, 1861, is in part as follows: ``I am very deeply mortified, humiliated, insulted and disgraced. . . . I am sent here [Fort Leavenworth] into banishment, with not three thousand effective men under my command, while one of the Brigadiers, General Buell, is in command of near one hundred thousand men in Kentucky. The only sin I have committed is my carrying out your views in relation to the retrograde movement from Springfield. . . . So it appears that I have been deprived of a command, suitable to my rank, for presuming to answer. . . official questions put to me by the Secretary of War. . . for in no other way was I connected with the Fremont troubles. . . .'' (DLC-RTL).