to see it contain 250,000,000. The struggle of to-day is not altogether for to-day-it is for a vast future also. With a reliance on Providence all the more firm and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which events have devolved upon ABRAHAM LINCOLN. us. WASHINGTON, December 3, 1861. Schedule A. EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D. C., 1861. REV. Sir: Having been solicited by Christian ministers and other pious people to appoint suitable persons to act as chaplains at the hospitals for our sick and wounded soldiers, and feeling the intrinsic propriety of having such persons to so act, and yet believing there is no law conferring the power upon me to appoint them, I think fit to say that if you will voluntarily enter upon and perform the appropriate duties of such position, I will recommend that Congress make compensation there for at the same rate as chaplains in the army are compensated. The following are the names and dates, respectively, of the persons and times to whom and when such letters were delivered: Rev. G. G. Goss..... September 25, 1861. Rev. F. E. Boyle. ..October 30, 1861. Rev. John C. Smith......November 7, 1861. Rev. Wm. Y. Brown....November 7, 1861. MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, December 4, 1861 To the House of Representatives: I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, in reply to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 13th July last, in relation to the correspondence between this government and foreign nations respecting the rights of blockade, privateering, and the recognition of the socalled Confederate States. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, December 4, 1861 To the House of Representatives: I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, in reply to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 31st July last, upon the subject of increasing and extending the trade and commerce of the United States with foreign countries. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. LETTER TO GENERAL MCCLELLAN EXECUTIVE MANSION, December 6, 1861. My dear Sir: Captain Francis G. Young, of the California regiment (Colonel Baker's), is in some difficulty-I do not precisely understand what. I believe you know I was unfavorably impressed toward him because of apparently contradictory accounts he gave me of some matters at the battle of Ball's Bluff. At length he has brought me the paper which accompanies this, showing, I think, that he is entitled to respectful consideration. As you see, it is signed by several senators and representatives as well as other well-known and respectable gentlemen. I attach considerable consequence to the name of Lieutenant-Colonel Shaler, late Major Shaler of the New York Seventh. These things, and his late connection with Colonel Baker, induce me to ask you if, consistently with the public service, the past, whatever it is, cannot be waived, and he placed in service and given another chance? Yours truly, A. LINCOLN. MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, December 9, 1861 To the House of Representatives: I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, in reply to the resolution of the House of the 4th instant, relative to the intervention of certain European powers in the affairs of Mexico. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. |