Now for yours.  On the 23d of May, largely over two months afterward, you were at Franklin, Va., not within 300 miles of Knoxville, nor within 80 miles of any part of the railroad east of it, and not moving forward, but telegraphing here that you could not move for lack of everything.  Now, do not misunderstand me.  I do not say you have not done all you could.  I presume you met unexpected difficulties; and I beg you to believe that as surely as you have done your best, so have I. I have not the power now to fill up your Corps to 35,000.  I am not demanding of you to do the work of 35,000.  I am only asking of you to stand cautiously on the defensive, get your force in order, and give such protection as you can to the valley of the Shenandoah and to western Virginia.

Have you received the orders, and will you act upon them?

A. Lincoln.

TO GENERAL C. SCHURZ.

Washington, June 16, 1862

Brigadier-general Schurz, Mount Jackson, Virginia: 

Your long letter is received.  The information you give is valuable.  You say it is fortunate that Fremont did not intercept Jackson; that Jackson had the superior force, and would have overwhelmed him.  If this is so, how happened it that Fremont fairly fought and routed him on the 8th?  Or is the account that he did fight and rout him false and fabricated?  Both General Fremont and you speak of Jackson having beaten Shields.  By our accounts he did not beat Shields.  He had no engagement with Shields.  He did meet and drive back with disaster about 2000 of Shields’s advance till they were met by an additional brigade of Shields’s, when Jackson himself turned and retreated.  Shields himself and more than half his force were not nearer than twenty miles to any of it.

A. Lincoln.

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.

Washington, June 18, 1862.

Major-general Halleck, Corinth, Mississippi: 

It would be of both interest and value to us here to know how the expedition toward East Tennessee is progressing, if in your judgment you can give us the information with safety.

A. Lincoln.

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.

War department, Washington, D. C., June 18, 1862.

Major-general McCLELLAN: 

Yours of to-day, making it probable that Jackson has been reinforced by about 10,000 from Richmond, is corroborated by a despatch from General King at Fredericksburg, saying a Frenchman, just arrived from Richmond by way of Gordonsville, met 10,000 to 15,000 passing through the latter place to join Jackson.

If this is true, it is as good as a reinforcement to you of an equal force.  I could better dispose of things if I could know about what day you can attack Richmond, and would be glad to be informed, if you think you can inform me with safety.