October 11, 1862
In the wake of the Battle of Perryville, President Lincoln writes General Jeremiah T. Boyle: “Please send any news you have from Gen. [Don Carlos] Buell to-day.” Boyle responds: “`Men from Tennessee report [John C.] Breckinridge moving northward. Some believe his purpose is to attack Nashville; others believe he is coming up to re-enforce Bragg….Terrible battle yesterday near Perryville. Buell drove Bragg 8 miles, with great slaughter on both sides.”
Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase writes in his diary: “After dinner talked a good deal with Genl. [David] Hunter, who is very well read. Asked him his opinion of [Henry W.] Halleck. He said, ‘He has ability and knowledge, but does not make an earnest study of the War–does not labor to get clear ideas of positions, conditions and possibilities, so as to seize and press advantages or remedy evils.’– I then asked what he thought of the President? ‘A man irresolute but of honest intentions – born a poor white in a Slave State, and, of course, among aristocrats – kind in spirit and not envious, but anxious for approval, especially of those to whom he has been accustomed to look up – hence solicitous of support of the Slaveholders in the Border States, and unwilling to offend them – without the large mind necessary to grasp great question–uncertain of himself, and in many things ready to lean too much on others.’”
Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War 
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