On May 29, President Lincoln received a telegram from General Ambrose Burnside, offering his resignation.
Burnside had been told that his recent arrest of former Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham had caused some embarrassment to the president. Mr. Lincoln did not accept Burnside's offer.
The following day, U.S. Senator Charles Sumner (Massachusetts) and his committee from New York met with the president. They offered that they were confident they could raise a force of 10,000 black soldiers for the U.S. Colored troops if General John Fremont could command them. Mr. Lincoln said he would be pleased to receive not 10,000 but ten times ten thousand and that he would protect them and receive them into service to help complete his task of finishing the war.
Mr. Lincoln and Congressman Sumner also discussed problems associated with organizing and raising colored troops in the North. Sumner had known the problem that raising 2,000 men to fill the 54th and 55th Massachusetts had presented. Only a few more than 400 black men had enlisted. The regiments both had to recruit in other states to fill their ranks with their primary source being Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Several prominent black leaders were recruited to help with enlistment of colored soldiers including Frederick Douglass and Martin R. Delany.
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