Annotation
[1] ALS, DLC-RTL. On the bottom of the letter is the following endorsement: ``I do not know of any charges against General McClernand. General Grant has made a report which I have not seen & know nothing of its contents
``EDWIN M STANTON''
An accompanying page bears the following note from Halleck to whom this communication had been referred:
``There are no formal charges against Major Genl McClernand. Genl Grant has reported his reasons for removing him from command.''
John A. McClernand wrote Lincoln on August 3:
``According to news-paper account it is the purpose of my enemy's, at this late day, to attempt to gloss [?] the more than mortal injury they have done me, by bringing me before a court martial. If so; let me, as an American . . . more jealous of my honor than of my life, appeal to you to see that I am fairly dealt by---that I am not held up before the country for months in the character of an alleged culprit, as an excuse for withholding from me a command . . . .'' (DLC-RTL).
Grant had removed McClernand for publishing General Orders No. 72, May 30, 1863, in the Memphis Evening Bulletin of June 13, in which McClernand praised his Thirteenth Corps and insinuated that in the unsuccessful assault on the Vicksburg fortifications of May 22, he was not supported by Sherman's Fifteenth Corps and McPherson's Seventeenth Corps. McClernand failed to submit the order to Grant before issuing it to the press, as was required by regulations. On June 18 Grant removed McClernand, and on June 26 transmitted the papers in the case to Lorenzo Thomas with the comment: ``A disposition and earnest desire on my part to do the most I could with the means at my command, without interference with the assignments to command which the President alone was authorized to make, made me tolerate General McClernand long after I thought the good of the service demanded his removal. It was only when almost the entire army under my command seemed to demand it that he was relieved . . . .'' (OR, I, XXIV, I,158-59). See further Lincoln to McClernand, August 12, infra.