To Henry W. Halleck1Jump to section
Corinth---Miss July 4. 1862.
You do not know how much you would oblige us, if, without abandoning any of your positions, or plans, you could promptly send us even ten thousand infantry. Can you not? Some part of the Corinth Army is certainly fighting McClellan in front of Richmond. Prisoners are in our hands from the late Corinth Army.
A. LINCOLN.
Annotation
[1] ALS, RPB. Halleck replied on July 5, ``For the last week there has been great uneasiness among Union men in Tennessee on account of the secret organizations of insurgents to co-operate in any attack of the enemy on our lines. Every commanding officer from Nashville to Memphis has asked for re-enforcements. . . . I submitted the question of sending troops to Richmond to the principal officers of my command. They are unanimous in opinion that if this army is seriously diminished the Chattanooga expedition must be revoked or the hope of holding Southwest Tennessee abandoned. I must earnestly protest against surrendering what has cost us so much . . . and which in a military point of view is worth more than Richmond. . . .'' (OR, I, XVI, II, 95). Lincoln forwarded Halleck's dispatch to McClellan on July 5, infra.