The life and public services of Abraham Lincoln ... together with his state papers, including his speeches, addresses, messages, letters, and proclamations, and the closing scenes connected with his life and death. By Henry J. Raymond. To which are added anecdotes and personal reminiscences of President Lincoln, by Frank B. Carpenter.

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THE LIFE, PUBLIC SERVICES, AND

we never try, we shall never succeed. If he make a stand at Winchester,
moving neither north nor south, I would fight him there, on the idea that
if we cannot beat him when he bears the wastage of coming to us, we
never can when we bear the wastage of going to him. This proposition
is a simple truth, and is too important to be lost sight of for a moment.
In coming to us, he tenders us an advantage which we should not waive.
We should not so operate as to merely drive him away. As we must beat
him somewhere, or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier near to us
than far away. If we cannot beat the enemy where he now is, we nevei
can, he again being within the intrenchments of Richmond. Recurring
to the idea of going to Richmond on the inside track, the facility of supplying from the side away from the enemy is remarkable, as it were, by
the different spokes of a wheel, extending from the hub towards the rim,
and this whether you move directly by the chord, or on the inside arc,
hugging the Blue Ridge more closely. The chord-line, as you see, carries
you by Aldie, Haymarket, and Fredericksburg, and you see how turnpikes, railroads, and finally the Potomac by Aquia Creek, meet you at
all points from Washington. The same, only the lines lengthened a little.
if you press closer to the Blue Ridge part of the way. The gaps through
the Blue Ridge I understand to be about the following distances from
Harper's Ferry, to wit: Vestal's, five miles; Gregory's, thirteen; Snicker's, eighteen; Ashby's, twenty-eight; Manassas, thirty-eight; Chester,
forty-five; and Thornton's, fifty-three. I should think it preferable to
take the route nearest the enemy, disabling him to make an important
move without your knowledge, and compelling him to keep his forces
together for dread of you. The gaps would enable you to attack if you
should wish. For a great part of the way you.would be practically
between the enemy and both Washington and Richmond, enabling us to
spare you the greatest number of troops from here. When, at length,
running to Richmond ahead of him enables him to move this way, if he
does so, turn and attack him in the rear. But I think he should be
engaged long before such point is reached. It is all easy if our troops
march as well as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say they cannot do it.
This letter is in no sense an order.
Yours, truly, A. LINcoLN.
Major-General MOCLELLAN.
For over a fortnight longer General McClellan delayed
any attempt to move his army in obedience to the President' s order. He spent this interval in complaints of inadequate supplies, and in incessant demands for re-enforcements; and on the 21st inquired whether it was still the
President's wish that he should march upon the enemy at
once, or await the arrival of fresh horses. He was told in,:ely that the order of the 6th was unchanged, and that