Yours of November 25 reached me only yesterday. Thank you for it. I shall consider and remember your suggestions.
A. LINCOLN.
TELEGRAM TO B. G. BROWN.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON December 7, 1862.
HON. B. GRATZ BROWN, Saint Louis, Missouri:
Yours of the 3d received yesterday. Have already done what I can in the premises.
A. LINCOLN.
TELEGRAM TO GOVERNOR JOHNSON.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, December 8, 1862. GOVERNOR ANDREW JOHNSON, Nashville, Tenn.:
Jesse H. Strickland is here asking authority to raise a regiment of Tennesseeans. Would you advise that the authority be given him?
A. LINCOLN.
MESSAGE TO CONGRESS. December 8, 1862.
WASHINGTON, D. C.
TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
In conformity to the law of July 16, 1862, I most cordially recommend, that Commander John L. Worden, United States Navy, receive a vote of thanks of Congress for the eminent skill and gallantry exhibited by him in the late remarkable battle between the United States ironclad steamer Monitor, under his command, and the rebel ironclad steamer Merrimac, in March last.
The thanks of Congress for his services on the occasion referred to were tendered by a resolution approved July 11, 1862, but the recommendation is now specially made in order to comply with the requirements of the ninth section of the act of July 16, 1862, which is in the following words, viz.:
"That any line officer of the navy or marine corps may be advanced one grade if upon recommendation of the President by name he receives the thanks of Congress for highly distinguished conduct in conflict with the enemy or for extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession."
A. LINCOLN.
TO GENERAL S. R. CURTIS.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
December 10, 1862.
MAJOR-GENERAL CURTIS, St. Louis, Missouri:
Please suspend, until further order, all proceeding on the order made by General Schofield, on the twenty-eighth day of August last, for a.s.sessing and collecting from secessionists and Southern sympathizers the sum of five hundred thousand dollars, etc., and in the meantime make out and send me a statement of facts pertinent to the question, together with your opinion upon it.
A. LINCOLN.
TO J. K. DUBOIS.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
December 10, 1862.
Hon. J. K. DuBois.
MY DEAR SIR:--In the summer of 1859, when Mr. Freeman visited Springfield, Illinois, in relation to the McCallister and Stebbins bonds I promised him that, upon certain conditions, I would ask members of the Legislature to give him a full and fair hearing of his case. I do not now remember, nor have I time to recall, exactly what the conditions were, nor whether they were completely performed; but there can be in no case any harm [in] his having a full and fair hearing, and I sincerely wish it may be given him.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.
December 11, 1862.
TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
In compliance with your resolution of December 5, 1862, requesting the President "to furnish the Senate with all information in his possession touching the late Indian barbarities in the State of Minnesota, and also the evidence in his possession upon which some of the princ.i.p.al actors and head men were tried and condemned to death," I have the honor to state that on receipt of said resolution, I transmitted the same to the Secretary of the Interior, accompanied by a note, a copy of which is herewith inclosed, marked A, and in response to which I received, through that department, a letter of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, a copy of which is herewith inclosed, marked B.
I further state that on the eighth day of November last I received a long telegraphic despatch from Major-General Pope, at St. Paul, Minnesota, simply announcing the names of the persons sentenced to be hanged. I immediately telegraphed to have transcripts of the records in all cases forwarded to me, which transcripts, however, did not reach me until two or three days before the present meeting of Congress. Meantime I received, through telegraphic despatches and otherwise, appeals in behalf of the condemned, appeals for their execution, and expressions of opinion as to the proper policy in regard to them and to the Indians generally in that vicinity, none of which, as I understand, falls within the scope of your inquiry. After the arrival of the transcripts of records, but before I had sufficient opportunity to examine them, I received a joint letter from one of the senators and two of the representatives from Minnesota, which contains some statements of fact not found in the records of the trials, and for which reason I herewith transmit a copy, marked C. I also, for the same reason, inclose a printed memorial of the citizens of St. Paul, addressed to me, and forwarded with the letter aforesaid.
Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on the one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other, I caused a careful examination of the records of trials to be made, in view of first ordering the execution of such as had been proved guilty of violating females. Contrary to my expectation, only two of this cla.s.s were found. I then directed a further examination and a cla.s.sification of all who were proven to have partic.i.p.ated in ma.s.sacres, as distinguished from partic.i.p.ation in battles. This cla.s.s numbered forty, and included the two convicted of female violation. One of the number is strongly recommended, by the commission which tried them, for commutation to ten years imprisonment I have ordered the other thirty-nine to be executed on Friday the 19th instant. The order was despatched from here on Monday, the 8th instant, by a messenger to General Sibley, and a copy of which order is herewith transmitted, marked D.
An abstract of the evidence as to the forty is herewith inclosed, marked E.