Tad Lincoln, the president's young son, offers aid to his busy father

A group of businessmen including a local judge from Kentucky stopped at the White House several different times to see the president. Each time they were turned away and disappointed. The president knew of their presence but had decide to not meet with them.

They were persistent.  On their return visit, they were met in the hallway by Tad Lincoln, the president's 8 year old son.  Tad had a great personality and was loved by everyone.  Tad asked the men what their asked what their business was.. When they told of their frustration upon meeting with his obviously very busy father, Tad intervened.

Asking the men to follow him, Tad went into his father's office and said, "Papa. May I introduce some friends to you?" His father said yes, of course, not knowing who those friends were. He was quite surprised to be introduced to those very men he had been trying to avoid.

When he found out he patted Tad on the head and told him he was pleased with Tad's diplomacy.  The child was not disciplined for his actions.

For my money, it was young Tad who had the run of the White House.  He pretty much could do no wrong in the eyes of his presidential father.

President Lincoln remains annoyed with General Meade and praises General Grant

Mr. Lincoln continued into the next week with the troubling thoughts of General Meade's failures. General after general had continued to disappoint him.  He wrote a dispatch to General Halleck for General Meade of his concerns saying "I was in such deep distress myself that I could not restrain some expression of it...I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of misfortune involved in Lee's escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our latest successes, have ended the war...Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably because of it." The letter was never sent.

When I talked to the president, he seemed more depressed than usual. At one point he said he told John Nicolay, one of his secretaries, if he had gone up to Gettysburg he could have licked them rebel boys himself.

The president also wrote an unusual dispatch to General Grant, telling his top general that the commander-in-chief had doubted Grant's plan of taking Vicksburg and wanted now to let the general know "you were right and I was wrong."  As part of that plan General Grant had actually boasted that he was going to dine in Vicksburg by celebrating the 4th of July in fine dining fashion.

The Vicksburg Daily Citizen newspaper had gotten wind of the boast and suggested that "the way to cook a rabbit was is 'to first catch the rabbit.'" When they did take the city on the 4th, Union soldiers printed the message "General Grant has caught the rabbit."

The President receives the news of the capture of Vicksburg

While basking in the huge Union victory at Gettysburg, the president is greatly annoyed that still another of his Union generals (this time General George Meade) is satisfied with pushing General Lee's army back into Virginia without attempting to destroy him in the process. Meade's telegram to Mr. Lincoln saying that he had driven the invader from our soil did not sit well with the commander-in-chief at all.

On July 7 a dispatch from General Ulysses S. Grant brought some additional joy to Washington City, as Grant announced that Vicksburg, Mississippi had also fallen.

When Mr. Lincoln appeared in the upstairs window, a band started playing and the crowd enthusiastically cheer the president.  Mr. Lincoln spoke briefly saying that it was fitting the Vicksburg victory occurred on the 4th of July when defeat came to "those who opposed the declaration that all men are created equal." He also praised the many brave soldiers who fought for the Union.

The president and his son, Tad, visited with wounded General Daniel E. Sickles who had been shot at Gettysburg. Sickle's right leg had already been amputated prior to their hospital visit where the president congratulated him on his courage and expressed regret about the injury.

The Union Army's grand battle at Gettysburg

President Lincoln spent much of the week in telegraph office of the War Department looking at dispatches and following the action of the two opposing armies at Gettysburg. He spent each night on the couch near the telegraph operator with orders to be awakened if any dispatch came through. He looked painfully full of anxiety as he paced back and forth waiting very impatiently.

Finally he got the word from General Meade that General Lee has lost a full one-third of his army and would be unlikely to ever mount a major objective again.  Meanwhile Meade seemed pleased that he had pushed Lee's army out of Pennsylvania, without realizing that Mr. Lincoln intended that he pursue the enemy and perhaps end the bloody war.

The president informed the press of the news from Gettysburg, saying the action was such "as to cover that Army (the Army of the Potomac) with the highest honor."

In the midst of the upheaval in Gettysburg, Mary Lincoln was seriously injured in a buggy accident on her way to visit the Soldier's Home. She hit her head and was cut quite severely when the buggy seat, which I observed may have been sabotaged to injure the president and his family, came lose and threw her and the  driver onto the ground.

Mr. Lincoln, quite occupied, did at least assign a nurse to watch over her and sent a telegram to his son Robert, away at Harvard College, to come home to care for her.

Mr. Lincoln finally resolves the General Hooker dilemna

After several weeks of trying to prod General Joseph Hooker into action and attack of Lee's army, Hooker wired Mr. Lincoln that he was not able to comply with his orders at Harpers Ferry. Hooker's usual excuse that he was outnumbered was getting old, but he used it again in this communique. He claimed due to "an enemy in my front of more than my number..I am unable to comply...and with the means at my disposal, and earnestly request that I may at once be relieved." It seemed likely to Hooker that Mr. Lincoln would not comply. However the president did comply, relieving General hooker of command and assigning General George Meade as the new commander of the Army of the Potomac.

In Meade, Mr. Lincoln would have a Pennsylvanian who would likely have to soon defend his home state against an impending invasion by General Robert E. Lee's entire army.  Mr. Lincoln explained the move quiet eloquently by saying of Meade "He will fight well on his own dunghill."

The move to replace Hooker was the third removal of a commanding officer in less than two years by the commander-in-chief who was continually frustrated by his generals.

On the subject of having his generals always being outnumbered in the field, Mr. Lincoln was asked how many troops the rebels could field in battle. He answered quickly "1,200,00 according to my best authority."

The questioner was astonished. He asked Mr. Lincoln where that number came from.

Mr. Lincoln pointed out "You see all of our generals when they get whipped say the enemy outnumbered them from three of five to one, and I must believe them. Don't you see it? It is as plain as a nose on a man's face. At the rate things are now going with the great amount of speculation and small crop of fighting, it will take a long time to overcome 1,200,000 rebels in arms."

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.

Lincoln's dream and telegrams to General Hooker

The President had a bad dream about his son Tad this week. Tad and his mother were visiting Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Tad had taken his pistol described as "big enough to snap caps...but no cartridges or powder". Because of the dream, Mr. Lincoln wired Mary and told her "think you better put Tad's pistol away. I had an ugly dream about him."

Much of the president's military correspondence for the week were back and forth between Mr. Lincoln and General Joseph Hooker. Mr. Lincoln reminded General Hooker in a telegram on June 10 that "I think Lee's Army and not Richmond is your true objective point."

Several days later he reminded Hooker that "so far as we can make out here, the enemy have General Milroy surrounded at Winchester and General Tyler at Martinsburg...if the head of Lee's army is at Martisnburg and the tail of it on Plank road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the animal must be very slim somewhere. Could you not break him?"