July 15, 1864
Navy Secretary Gideon Welles writes in his diary: “We had some talk at Cabinet-meeting to-day on the Rebel invasion. The President wants to believe there was a large force, and yet evidently his private convictions are otherwise. But the military leaders, the War Office, have insisted there was a large force. We have done nothing, and it is more gratifying to our self-pride to believe there were many of them, especially as we are likely to let them off with considerable plunder scot-free.” Attorney General Edward Bates writes in his diary:“To day, I spoke my mind, very plainly, to the Prest. (In presence of Seward, Welles and Usher) abt the ignorant imbecility of the late military operations, and my contempt for Genl Halleck.”
President Lincoln himself is more than disappointed Former Illinois Senator Orville H. Browning writes in his diary: “Met the President between the War Department & White House — Said he was in the Dumps — that the rebels who had besieged us were all escaped.”
President Lincoln writes New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley: “I suppose you received my letter of the 9th. I have just received yours of the 13 and am disappointed by it. I was not expecting you to send me a letter, but to bring me a man, or men. Mr. Hay goes to you with my answer to yours of the 13th.”
President Lincoln gives presidential aide Hay the following letter to deliver to Greeley: “Yours of the 13th. is just received; and I am disappointed that you have not already reached here with those Commissioners, if they would consent to come, on being shown my letter to you of the 9th. Inst. Show that and this to them; and if they will come on the terms stated in the former, bring them. I not only intend a sincere effort for peace, but I intend that you shall be a personal witness that it is made.”
Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War 
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