October 27, 1862---"Is it your purpose not to go into action . . . ?"

OCTOBER 27, 1862:            

President Lincoln and General McClellan continue their inane correspondence regarding McClellan’s dog-tired horses. The President writes:

“Yours of yesterday received. Most certainly I intend no injustice to any, and if I have done any I deeply regret it. To be told, after more than five weeks' total inaction of the army, and during which period we have sent to the army every fresh horse we possibly could, amounting in the whole to 7,918, that the cavalry horses were too much fatigued to move, presents a very cheerless, almost hopeless, prospect for the future, and it may have forced something of impatience in my dispatch. If not recruited and rested then, when could they ever be? I suppose the river is rising, and I am glad to believe you are crossing.”

To which the General replies:

“Your Excellency is aware of the very great reduction of numbers that has taken place in most of the old regiments of this command, and how necessary it is to fill up these skeletons before taking them again into action. I have the honor, therefore, to request that the order to fill up the old regiments with drafted men may at once be issued.”

Hearing the good old McClellan excuse, “I only have 100,000 men, how can I possibly fight an army that has only 50,000?” the President responds:

 “Your dispatch of 3 p. m. to-day, in regard to filling up old regiments with drafted men, is received, and the request therein shall be complied with as far as practicable.

 And now I ask a distinct answer to the question, Is it your purpose not to go into action again until the men now being drafted in the States are incorporated into the old regiments?”

Little Mac does not bother to answer the President.