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?"

President Lincoln reopens the Chicago Times newspaper

Two major concerns confronted President Lincoln. One was General Burnside's censuring and closing down the prestigious and most influential Chicago Times newspaper on June 1. The newspaper and its pro-Democratic editor, had criticized Burnside's arrest of former Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham for his alleged treasonous remarks.

Politicians in Illinois, Mr. Lincoln's home state, were furious with the newspaper's closing and pressured the president to act swiftly to overturn the decision. And the president did just that -- revoking the order that had closed the newspaper. Mr Lincoln also commented "I can only say that I was embarrassed with the question between what was due to the military service on the one hand, and the Liberty of the Press on the other."

The president's second concern was questions from his Cabinet concerning General Grant. Mr. Lincoln had watched seven months go by with Vicksburg still in Confederate hands and General Grant no where to be found. While Mr. Lincoln was still confident, the Cabinet wanted to know what was going on. They suggested General banks join General Grant.  A telegram was sent asking Grant about Banks. When the president got a reply, he was informed that General Banks was tied up in a siege of Port Hudson and could only join General Grant when that campaign was successful.    

General Ambrose Burnside offers to resign

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.

President Lincoln finally receives good news from the front

On May 22, President Lincoln is elated receiving a telegram from the front announcing that General Ulysses S. Grant had begun a siege on Vicksburg, MS. Grant had recently taken the Mississippi capital at Jackson. He had defeated two rebel armies. And now his men were attempting to break through the entrenchments at Vicksburg.

Lincoln called Grant's campaigns for the month of May "one of the most brilliant in the world."

That same week, Mr. Lincoln met with more than two dozen one-legged Union soldiers in the East Room of the White House. The veterans from St. Elizabeth's hospital each received a handshake from the president who was deeply moved by their dedication and courage. Chaplain J. C. Richmond who accompanied the men commented "These maimed heroes, sir, are eloquent without uttering a word. The limbs that are absent speak more loudly that the arms and legs that are here."

The president also visited three army hospitals in the Washington DC vicinity and talked to over 1,000 soldiers who were convalescing there.

On May 22, the Bureau of United States Colored Troops also came into existence. This enabled black soldiers to be received for the first time officially into the Union army as soldiers. Several prior black regiments, including the 54th Massachusetts, had already been formed.