President Lincoln Continues to Prod General Meade to Pursue Confederates

July 9, 1863

After pushing General George Meade aggressively to pursue Confederates after Gettysburg, the White House turns down the temperature.  Lincoln Scholar Frank J. Williams wrote: “On July 9, Halleck backed down and told Meade not to be influenced by ‘any dispatch from here against your own judgment.  Regard them as suggestions only.  Our information here is not always correct.’ Williams added: “It is hard to imagine that this was sent with Lincoln’s knowledge.  Technically – if not politically and militarily – Meade could now disregard orders from Washington with impunity.  And ‘Old Brains,’ as Halleck was called, actually believed, even if Lincoln did not, that, ‘To order a general to give battle against his own wishes and judgment is to assume the responsibility of a probable defeat.  If a general is unwilling to fight, he is not likely to gain a victory.’”

From Philadelphia, Rachel S. Evans writes President  Abraham Lincoln: “Will [you]please accept the accompanying Sofa Cushion, which was purchased by subscription, from the table of ‘The Penn Relief Association for Sick and Wounded Soldiers’ at the Grand Floral Fair recently held in this city.”

Worried about the consequences of their efforts to regain control of the Alamden mine in California, President Lincoln writes Leonard Swett, and Republican official Frederick F Low. July 9. 1863: “Consult together, and do not have a riot, or great difficulty about delivering possession.”

Advertisement