President Lincoln Tries to Answer Complaints and Requests

February 10, 1863

President Lincoln writes President Lincoln: “In answer to the resolution of the Senate of yesterday, requesting information touching the visit of Mr. Mercier to Richmond, in April last, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to whom the resolution was referred.”  The report read in part: ““Since the fourth of March, 1861, no communication, direct or indirect, formal or informal, has been held by this government, or by the Secretary of State, with the insurgents, their orders, or abettors. No passport has been granted to any foreign minister to pass the military lines except by the President’s direction, and each of such ministers who has received such passport has, on his return, waited upon the President as well as the Secretary of State, and given them such account, unasked, as he thought proper of the incidents of his journey.”

President Lincoln writes Generals  David Hunter and A.C. Smith along with W.E. Wording and W.H. Brisbane: “You are hereby authorized and directed agreeably to an Act of Congress, approved on the 6th. day of February inst. to select for Government use, for war, military, naval revenue, charitable, Educational or police purposes, such tracts, parcels or lots of land, within the State of South Carolina, from the lands which may have been or which may hereafter be offered for sale by the Direct Tax Commissioners in said State, appointed under an Act of Congress, approved June 7th. 1862. as may seem to you necessary and proper for the purposes aforesaid. And I do direct and order that either of the two persons first named, together with two of the three persons last named, shall constitute a quorum for the purpose of making such selections; and in case of the absence of the two persons first named, the last named three persons, or the major part of them, are authorized to make the selections, as hereinbefore directed. And you are hereby authorized and empowered to execute and perform the duties herein specified, according to Law. You will report your proceedings to the Secretary of the Treasury.”

President Lincoln orders a pardon for Henry Williams of Baltimore convicted of manslaughter.

President Lincoln is trying to pacify General Benjamin F. Butler, for whom he had not yet found a command assignment: “To-day Gen. B. F. Butler calls and asks that Philip Read of Mass (Dracut) may be sent to West-Point. Is now just past 17.”

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