Gillet F. Watson, Williamsburg, Va.: 

Your telegram in regard to the lunatic asylum has been received.  It is certainly a case of difficulty, but if you cannot remain, I cannot conceive who under my authority can.  Remain as long as you safely can and provide as well as you can for the poor inmates of the institution.

A. Lincoln.

TO HORACE GREELEY.

Executive Mansion, Washington,
August 22, 1862.

Hon.  Horace Greeley.

Dear sir:—­I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through the New York Tribune.  If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them.  If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them.  If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing,” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union.  I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution.  The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be, “the Union as it was.”  If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them.  If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them.  My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery.  If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.  What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.  I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.  I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.  I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free.

Yours,

A. Lincoln.

TELEGRAM TO GOVERNOR YATES.

War department, Washington, D.C., August 13.1862. 8 A.M.

Hon.  R. Yates, Springfield, Ill.: 

I am pained to hear that you reject the service of an officer we sent to assist in organizing and getting off troops.  Pennsylvania and Indiana accepted such officers kindly, and they now have more than twice as many new troops in the field as all the other States together.  If Illinois had got forward as many troops as Indiana, Cumberland Gap would soon be relieved from its present peril.  Please do not ruin us on punctilio.