I gave the new commander no instructions as to the administration of the system mentioned, beyond what is contained in the private letter afterwards surreptitiously published, in which I directed him to act solely for the public good, and independently of both parties.
Neither any thing you have presented me, nor anything I have otherwise learned, has convinced me that he has been unfaithful to this charge.
Imbecility is urged as one cause for removing General Schofield; and the late massacre at Lawrence, Kansas, is pressed as evidence of that imbecility. To my mind that fact scarcely tends to prove the proposition. That massacre is only an example of what Grierson, John Morgan, and many others might have repeatedly done on their respective raids, had they chosen to incur the personal hazard, and possessed the fiendish hearts to do it.
The charge is made that General Schofield, on purpose to protect the Lawrence murderers, would not allow them to be pursued into Missouri.
While no punishment could be too sudden or too severe for those murderers, I am well satisfied that the preventing of the threatened remedial raid into Missouri was the only way to avoid an indiscriminate massacre there, including probably more innocent than guilty. Instead of condemning, I therefore approve what I understand General Schofield did in that respect.
The charges that General Schofield has purposely withheld protection from loyal people and purposely facilitated the objects of the disloyal are altogether beyond my power of belief. I do not arraign the veracity of gentlemen as to the facts complained of, but I do more than question the judgment which would infer that those facts occurred in accordance with the purposes of General Schofield.
With my present views, I must decline to remove General Schofield.
In this I decide nothing against General Butler. I sincerely wish it were convenient to assign him a suitable command. In order to meet some existing evils I have addressed a letter of instructions to General Schofield, a copy of which I enclose to you.
As to the enrolled militia, I shall endeavor to ascertain better than I now know what is its exact value. Let me say now, however, that your proposal to substitute national forces for the enrolled militia implies that in your judgment the latter is doing something which needs to be done; and if so, the proposition to throw that force away and to supply its place by bringing other forces from the field where they are urgently needed seems to me very extraordinary. Whence shall they come? Shall they be withdrawn from Banks, or Grant, or Steele, or Rosecrans? Few things have been so grateful to my anxious feelings as when, in June last, the local force in Missouri aided General Schofield to so promptly send a large general force to the relief of General Grant, then investing Vicksburg and menaced from without by General Johnston. Was this all wrong? Should the enrolled militia then have been broken up and General Herron kept from Grant to police Missouri? So far from finding cause to object, I confess to a sympathy for whatever relieves our general force in Missouri and allows it to serve elsewhere. I therefore, as at present advised, cannot attempt the destruction of the enrolled militia of Missouri. I may add that, the force being under the national military control, it is also within the proclamation in regard to the habeas corpus.
I concur in the propriety of your request in regard to elections, and have, as you see, directed General Schofield accordingly. I do not feel justified to enter upon the broad field you present in regard to the political differences between Radicals and Conservatives. From time to time I have done and said what appeared to me proper to do and say. The public knows it all. It obliges nobody to follow me, and I trust it obliges me to follow nobody. The Radicals and Conservatives each agree with me in some things and disagree in others. I could wish both to agree with me in all things, for then they would agree with each other, and would be too strong for any foe from any quarter. They, however, choose to do otherwise; and I do not question their right. I too shall do what seems to be my duty.
I hold whoever commands in Missouri or elsewhere responsible to me and not to either Radicals or Conservatives. It is my duty to hear all, but at last I must, within my sphere, judge what to do and what to forbear.
Your obedient servant, A. LINCOLN.
APPROVAL OF THE DECISION OF THE COURT IN THE
CASE OF DR. DAVID M. WRIGHT.
WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERALS OFFICE, WASHINGTON, October 8, 1863.
MAJOR-GENERAL J. G. FOSTER, Commanding Department of Virginia and North Carolina, Fort Monroe, Va.
SIR:--The proceedings of the military commission instituted for the trial of David Wright, of Norfolk, in Special Orders Nos. 195, 196, and 197, of 1863, from headquarters Department of Virginia, have been submitted to the President of the United States. The following are his remarks on the case:
