EXECUTIVE MANSION,
WASHINGTON, March 20, 1863.

WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: 

Whereas it appears to my satisfaction that Thomas W. Knox, a correspondent of The New York Herald, has been, by the sentence of a court-martial, excluded from the Military Department under command of Major-General Grant, and also that General Thayer, president of the court-martial, which rendered the sentence, and Major-General McClernand, in command of a corps of that department, and many other respectable persons, are of opinion that Mr. Knox’s offense was technical, rather than willfully wrong, and that the sentence should be revoked:  Now, therefore, said sentence is hereby so far revoked as to allow Mr. Knox to return to General Grant’s head-quarters, to remain if General Grant shall give his express assent; and to again leave the department, if General Grant shall refuse such assent.

A. LINCOLN

With this letter I returned to the army.  General Grant referred the question to General Sherman.  In consideration of our quarrel, and knowing the unamiable character of the latter officer, I should have been greatly surprised had he given any thing else than a refusal.  I had fully expected to return immediately when I left St. Louis, but, like most persons in a controversy, wished to carry my point.

General Sherman long since retrieved his failure at Chickasaw Bayou.  Throughout the war he was honored with the confidence and friendship of General Grant.  The career of these officers was not marked by the jealousies that are too frequent in military life.  The hero of the campaign from Chattanooga to Raleigh is destined to be known in history.  In those successful marches, and in the victories won by his tireless and never vanquished army, he has gained a reputation that may well be enduring.

Soon after my return from Young’s Point, General Grant crossed the Mississippi at Grand Gulf, and made his daring and successful movement to attain the rear of Vicksburg.  Starting with a force less than the one his opponent could bring against him, he cut loose from his communications and succeeded in severing the enemy’s line of supplies.  From Grand Gulf to Jackson, and from Jackson to the rear of Vicksburg, was a series of brilliant marches and brilliant victories.  Once seated where he had his antagonist’s army inclosed, General Grant opened his lines to the Yazoo, supplied himself with every thing desired, and pressed the siege at his leisure.  With the fall of Vicksburg, and the fall, a few days later, of Port Hudson, “the Father of Waters went unvexed to the Sea.”