Sunday, June 14, 1863.Washington, DC.
| At 5:50 p.m., President Lincoln telegraphs commander of the
Army of the Potomac Major General Joseph Hooker regarding defensive strategies
on Virginia battlefields. Lincoln writes, "So far as we can make out here, the
enemy have [General Robert] Milroy surrounded at Winchester, and [General
Robert] Tyler at Martinsburg. . . . If the head of Lee's army is at Martinsburg
and the tail of it on the Plank road between Fredericksburg and
Chancellorsville, the animal must be very slim somewhere. Could you not break
him?" Abraham Lincoln to Joseph Hooker,
14 June 1863, CW, 6:273.
Meeting in evening at War Dept. consists of President, Secs.
Stanton and Welles, and Gen.
Halleck. Lincoln is "trying to find out what Lee's army is up to."
Welles, Diary;
Journal, Samuel P. Heintzelman Papers, Library of Congress,
Washington, DC. President authorizes secretary of treasury to
"co-operate by the revenue cutters under your direction with the navy in
arresting rebel depredations on American commerce and transportation and in
capturing rebels engaged therein." Abraham Lincoln to Salmon P. Chase,
14 June 1863, CW, 6:272-73. Replies to Hooker's dispatch inquiring if Winchester, Va., is surrounded:
"I really fear—almost believe, it is. No communication has been had with
it during the day, either at Martinsburg, or Harper's Ferry. . . . It is quite
certain that a considerable force of the enemy is thereabout; and I fear it is
an overwhelming one, compared with [Gen. Robert H.], Milroy[']s."
Abraham Lincoln to Joseph Hooker,
14 June 1863, CW, 6:273-74. |