Page 185
To Daniel E. Sickles1Jump to section
Major General Sickles: February 15. 1864.
I wish you to make a tour for me (principally for observation and information) by way of Cairo and New-Orleans, and returning by the Gulf and Ocean. All Military and Naval officers are to facilitate you with suitable transportation, and by conferring with you, and imparting, so far as they can, the information herein indicated, but you are not to command any of them. You will call at Memphis, Helena, Vicksburg, New-Orleans, Pensacola, Key-West, Charleston-Harbor, and such intermediate points as you may think important. Please ascertain at each place what is being done, if anything, for reconstruction---how the Amnesty proclamation works, if at all---what practical hitches, if any, there are about it---whether deserters come in from the enemy, what number has come in at each point since the Amnesty, and whether the ratio of their arrival is any greater since than before the Amnesty---what deserters report generally, and particularly, whether, and to what extent, the Amnesty is known within the rebel lines. Also learn what you can as to the colored people---how they get along as soldiers, as laborers in our service, on leased plantations, and as hired laborers with their old masters, if there be such cases. Also learn what you can about the colored people within the rebel lines. Also get any other information you may consider interesting, and, from time to time, send me what you may deem important to be known here at once, and be ready to make a general report on your return. Yours truly A. LINCOLN
Annotation
[1] ALS-P, ISLA; ADfS, DLC-RTL. See Lincoln to Steele, February 11, supra, and February 25, infra.