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.

Washington, D. C., December 8, 1862.

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.”

Abraham 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 assessing 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.