To Henry W. Halleck1Jump to section
Will Gen. Halleck please glance over the within, & tell me whether there is anything in it which can be turned to account?
June 3. 1863. A. LINCOLN
Annotation
[1] AES, DLC-RTL. Lincoln's endorsement is written on an envelope containing papers submitted by Ambrose W. Thompson, June 2, 1863, proposing that immigrants and Negroes be organized into military units to work on the proposed Metropolitan Railroad of which Thompson was president and which was to be built from Washington to Pittsburgh. The proposal was that the government pay the troops for four months to work for the corporation eight hours, with two hours daily drill. Following this period the troops would be sent to regular duty, and the funds expended by the government would be repaid by the corporation when its railroad was in operation.
Halleck returned the papers on the same day with the following endorsement: ``It has been found impossible to procure sufficient labor of enlisted men or `contrabands' to complete the forts around Washington or at Harpers Ferry. I think that any emigrants or Negroes who are paid out of the public Treasury had better be employed on the forts rather than let out to work for corporations. Moreover, working on fortifications is a much better military training than working on Rail Roads.''