sufficient reason why I should wish to be at a good understanding with you. Please write me at least as long a letter as this, of course saying in it just what you think fit.

24th. (To Henry W. Raymond who has urged him not to place General Hooker in high command.) That is all true; Hooker talks badly; but the trouble is, he is stronger with the country to-day than any other man.

(Raymond argues that Hooker's strength would crumble if his real attitude of antagonism to his superiors should be made public.)

The country would not believe it; they would say it was all a lie.

26th. (To Governor Andrew Johnson.) I am told you have at least thought of raising a negro military force. In my opinion the country now needs no specific thing so much as some man of your ability and position to go to this work. When I speak of your position, I mean that of an eminent citizen of a slave State and himself a slaveholder. The colored population is the great available and yet unavailed of, force for restoring the Union. The bare sight of 50,000 armed and drilled black soldiers upon the banks of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at once: And who doubts that we can present that sight if we but take hold in earnest? If you have been thinking of it, please do not dismiss the thought.

30th. (A Proclamation.) And whereas, it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord;

And insomuch as we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastise

ments in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown; but we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace-too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

All this being done in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the divine teachings, that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

April 1st. (To General D. Hunter.) I am glad to see the accounts of your colored force at Jacksonville, Florida. I see the enemy are driving at them fiercely, as is to be expected. It is important to the enemy that such a force shall not take shape and grow and thrive in the South, and in precisely the same proportion it is important to us that it shall. Hence the utmost caution and vigilance is necessary on our part. The enemy will make extra efforts to destroy them, and we should do the same to preserve and increase them.

3rd. (To General Hooker.) Our plan is to pass Saturday night on the boat; go over from Acquia Creek to your camp Sunday morning; remain with you till Tuesday morning and then return. Our party will probably not exceed six persons of all sorts.

11th. My opinion is that just now, with the enemy directly ahead of us, there is eligible route for us into Richmond; and consequently a question of preference between the Rappahannock route and the James River route is a contest about nothing. Hence our prime object is the enemy's army in front of us, and is not with or about Richmond at all, unless it be incidental to the main object.

What then? The two armies are face to face, with a narrow river between them. Our communications are shorter and safer than are those of the enemy. For this reason we can, with equal power, fret him more than he can us. I do not think that by raids toward Washington he can derange the Army of the Potomac at all. He has no distant operations which can call any of the Army of the Potomac away; we have such operations which may call him away, at least in part. While he remains intact I do not think we should take the disadvantage of attacking him in his intrenchments; but we should continually harass and menace him, so that he shall have no leisure nor safety in sending away detachments. If he weakens himself, then pitch into him.

13th. (To Admiral S. F. DuPont.) Hold your position. inside the bar near Charleston, or, if you shall have left it, return to it, and hold it till further orders. Do not allow the enemy to erect new batteries or defenses on Morris Island. If he has begun it drive him out. I do not herein order you to renew the general attack. That is to depend on your own discretion or a further order.

(To General D. Hunter and Admiral S. F. DuPont, near Charleston.) We still hope that by cordial and judicious co