November 7, 1863
A group of New York leaders, led by William B. Astor, write to Abraham Lincoln: “The undersigned representing in the City of New York both political parties have offered Gen Dix2 the nomination for Mayor and finding some hesitation on his part arising from his official position ask President Lincoln in view of the great national importance of the matter to request Gen. Dix to accept the nomination.”
Presidential aide John Hay writes in his diary: “The President passed the morning in disposing of cases of Courts Martial with the Judge Advocate Genl [Joseph Holt].”
Historian Edward G. Longacre wrote in Lincoln’s Cavalrymen: “Sharp fighting in northern Virginia where General George Meade had formed a plan to cross the Rapidan at three points, stealing a march on Lee, then to curl around the Rebel right, which was anchored on the east side of a Rapidan tributary known as Mine Run.” John Waugh wrote in Reelecting Lincoln: “On November 7, [General George] Meade’s army had pushed to the Rappahannock and, after severe fighting at Kelly’s Ford and at Rappahannock Station, had muscled Lee back across the Rapidan. It was not the major Federal offensive the president longed for, and it was cautiously done, but it had returned the two armies to roughly where they had been before Lee’s election-time offensive.”
Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War 
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