If you have not, please inform me,
so that I, incompetent as I may be, can try and assist in the formation
of some plan for the army.
Yours, as ever,
A. LINCOLN.
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
CAMP NEAR FALMOUTH, VA., May 7, 1863.
His Excellency, President of the United States.
I have the honor to acknowledge your communication of this date, and in
answer have to state that I do not deem it expedient to suspend
operations on this line, from the reverse we have experienced in
endeavoring to extricate the army from its present position. If in the
first effort we failed, it was not for want of strength or conduct of
the small number of troops actually engaged, but from a cause which
could not be foreseen, and could not be provided against. After its
occurrence the chances of success were so much lessened, that I felt
another plan might be adopted in place of that we were engaged in,
which would be more certain in its results. At all events, a failure
would not involve a disaster, while in the other case it was certain to
follow the absence of success.
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