Friday, June 21, 2013

The President continues to prod General Hooker into decisive action against General Lee

For the second straight week. communications between the president and General Joseph Hooker were of prime concern.  General Hooker, it seemed to Mr. Lincoln, looked like defensive maneuvering, when Mr. Lincoln was demanding more substantive offensive action. President Lincoln wired Hooker saying that his actions "seem to abandon the fair chance now presented of breaking the enemy's long and necessarily slim line, not stretched from the Rappahannock to Pennsylvania."

General Halleck was at the same time also showing his lack of confidence in General Hooker. Halleck, who was Hooker's superior, also despised Hooker and the feeling was mutual.  Yet the president needed them to both support his actions as commander-in-chief.

At this week's Cabinet meeting, Secretary Salmon P. Chase asks President Lincoln to consider an attempt to capture Richmond.  Mr. Lincoln rejects the idea.

Mr. Lincoln reminded me on June 20 that my boyhood home in Berkeley County, Virginia was now in the new state of West Virginia. He said West Virginia became the 35th state, a Union state supporting Mr. Lincoln.  They had split off from their home state of Virginia. I was proud, but was not certain my brothers, who were fighting for the Confederacy, were celebrating on that particular day.




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