Annotation
[1] ALS,ICHi; ADfS, DLC-RTL.General Grant's despatch to Halleck of July 24, responding to Halleck's of July 11 that he was ``exceedingly anxious about General Banks' command'' (OR, I, XXIV, III, 497), reported, ``I have sent Banks one division, numbering full 4,000 effective men . . . . My troops are very much exhausted, and entirely unfit for any present duty requiring much marching. But, by selecting, any duty of immediate pressing importance could be done. It seems to me that Mobile is the point deserving the most immediate attention . . . . (ibid., pp. 546-47). At Cairo, Illinois, on August 23, Grant replied to Lincoln's letter:
``Your letter of the 9th inst. reached me at Vicksburg just as I was about starting for this place. Your letter of the 13th of July was also duly received.
``After the fall of Vicksburg I did incline very much to an immediate move on Mobile. I believed then the place could be taken with but little effort, and . . . we would have . . . a base to opperate from . . . as would make them