April 9, 1862---Lincoln to McClellan: "You must act."

APRIL 9, 1862:            

General McClellan continues the pointless Siege of Yorktown. In frustration, the President writes him a letter, which reads in part:

My dear Sir.

Your despatches complaining that you are not properly sustained, while they do not offend me, do pain me very much…Blencker's Division was withdrawn from you before you left here; and you knew the pressure under which I did it, and, as I thought, acquiesced in it -- certainly not without reluctance…After you left, I ascertained that less than twenty thousand unorganized men, without a single field battery, were all you designed to be left for the defence of Washington, This presented…a great temptation to the enemy to turn back from the Rappahanock, and sack Washington. My explicit order that Washington should, by the judgment of all the commanders of Army corps, be left entirely secure, had been neglected…There is a curious mystery about the number of the troops now with you…saying you had over a hundred thousand with you…You now say you will have but 85,000…How can the discrepancy of 23,000 be accounted for?

…I think it is the precise time for you to strike a blow. By delay the enemy will relatively gain upon you…And once more let me tell you, it is indispensable to you that you strike a blow. I am powerless to help this…I always insisted that going down the Bay…was only shifting, and not surmounting, a difficulty---the present hesitation to move upon an entrenched enemy, is but the story of Manassas repeated.

I beg to assure you that I have never written you, or spoken to you, in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you, so far as in my most anxious judgment, I consistently can. But you must act…

McClellan ignored Lincoln’s letter.