“Both Sides, Now”
Civil War Daily Gazette has been doing a great job giving us the interplay between President Lincoln and General McClellan as the president tries to gently goad his general into getting the army south of the Potomac and attacking the rebel army. Here’s a telegram the president sent to Little Mac 150 years ago today while the army was still astride the river (at Project Gutenberg Volume 6):
TELEGRAM TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, October 29, 1863.
MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:
Your despatches of night before last, yesterday, and last night all received. I am much pleased with the movement of the army. When you get entirely across the river let me know. What do you know of the enemy?
A. LINCOLN.
It might be a while. I’m not sure how well McClellan responds to vague timetables, but he probably wouldn’t respond at all to more definite orders from the Civilian-in-Chief. Lincoln keeps wanting to make contact with the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to kill some more rebels. It is said that Lincoln and McClellan had very different ideas how the war should be conducted.
