WASHINGTON, August 17, 1864.

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL GRANT:

I have seen your dispatch expressing your unwillingness to break your hold where you are. Neither am I willing. Hold on with a bull-dog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.

A. LINCOLN.

MAJOR-GENERAL HOOKER :

WASHINGTON, June 5, 1863, 4 p.m.

Yours of to-day was received an hour ago. So much of professional military skill is requisite to answer it that I have turned the task over to General Halleck. He promises to perform it with his utmost care. I have but one idea which I think worth suggesting to you, and that is, in case you find Lee coming to the north of the Rappahannock, I would by no means cross to the south of it. If he should leave a rear force at Fredericksburg, tempting you to fall upon it, it would fight in intrenchments and have you at disadvantage, and so, man for man, worst you at that point, while his main force would in some way be getting an advantage of you northward. In one word, I would not take any risk of being entangled upon the river, like an ox jumped half over a fence and liable to be torn by dogs front and rear, without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other. If Lee would come to my side of the river, I would keep on the same side, and fight him or act on the defense, according as might be my estimate of his strength relatively to my own. But these are mere suggestions, which I desire to be controlled by the judgment of yourself and General Halleck.

(Signed)

A. LINCOLN.

WASHINGTON, June 14th, 1863, 5.50 p.m.

MAJOR-GENERAL HOOKER :

So far as we can make out here, the enemy have Milroy surrounded at Winchester and Tyler at Martinsburg. If they could hold out a few days could you help them? If the head of Lee's army is at Martinsburg and the tail of it on the plank road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the animal must be very slim somewhere. Could you not break him?

(Signed)

A. LINCOLN.

QUITE A SUDDEN JUMP, AND WELL

DESERVED.

Sergeant A. F. Hayden of Troop I, Sixth New York Cavalry, while on duty at headquarters, Middle Military Division, was, on the recommendation of General Sheridan, commissioned a captain and assigned to duty as A. A. General on his staff.

POEM WRITTEN BY A MEMBER OF THE
SIXTH NEW YORK CAVALRY.

NEW YEAR'S WISH.

'Tis happy New Year, and the loved ones at home,
With smiles and kind wishes greet friends as they come,
With kisses and bon-bons, and wealth of good cheer,
With feasting and dancing, they hail the New Year.

Far away in the wildwood, o'er hills and through dales,
In the land of the South 'ron, where liberty pales,
Rappahannock's dark waters flow murmuring along,
And the wind through the pines sounds a requiem song.

464

Sixth New York Cavalry.

Hark! what breaks the lone spell on the forest so still? Why crash the dry limbs on yon laurel-crowned hill? 'Tis the picket, as slowly he steals through the brake, Lone vigil to keep until morn shall awake.

No kisses for him as he watches the ford,
Nor mother, nor maiden, with kind loving word,
As with carbine advanced, and listening ear,
He waits for a sign that the foeman is near.

Away from his kindred, his friends and his home, For the cause of his country the trooper has come. May the battle-rent banner he hails with a cheer Regain its lost stars ere another New Year.

THE NEW YOR

PUBLIC LIBRARI

ASTOR, LENOX AND
ILBEN FOUNDATIONS.