To Ulysses S. Grant1Jump to section
Lieut. Genl. Grant War Department,
City-Point, Va. Washington, D.C., January 14 1865.
You have perhaps seen in the papers that Ex. Senator Foote, with his family, attempted to escape from Richmond to Washington, and that he was pursued and taken back. His wife and child are now here. Please give me the earliest information you may receive concerning him---what is likely to be done with him &c.
A. LINCOLN
Annotation
[1] ALS, DNA WR RG 107, Presidential Telegrams, I, 290. Concerning Henry S. Foote, formerly of Mississippi, but a member of the Confederate Congress from Tennessee, Grant replied on January 15: ``I send you by telegraph message from Davis & other dispatches from Richmond Whig, concerning the arrest of Ex Senator Foote, which is all the information I have on the subject. Any further information that I obtain will be sent you what is likely to be done with him is difficult to conjecture. I suppose they will at furthest do nothing more than imprison him.'' (DLC-RTL).
Having resigned from the Confederate Congress, Foote was arrested at Occoquan, Virginia, on January 10, while attempting to pass through the lines (OR, II, VIII, 68-69). He arrived in New York City from Europe on April 6, 1865, only to be arrested by order of General Dix (ibid., p. 472). He was paroled on April 22 (ibid., p. 504).