August 10, 1863---Lincoln confers with Douglass

AUGUST 10, 1863:    

President Lincoln meets with Frederick Douglass to discuss the disposition of the newly-freed. Douglass presses Lincoln to do away with the pay disparity between white and black soldiers. 

This memorabilia of the U.S.C.T. interestingly has the State motto of Virginia upon it: Sic Semper Tyrannis: “Thus Always To Tyrants,” the same words shouted by John Wilkes Booth in Ford’s Theatre.

August 9, 1863---Lincoln to Grant: "Retake Texas before the French get there."

AUGUST 9, 1863:       

France has invaded Mexico, and has set up a puppet regime under Emperor Maximilian I. The puppet regime, though officially neutral, is friendly to the Confederacy. Although the United States is outraged at this gross violation of the Monroe Doctrine, there is little that the U.S. can do so long as the Rebels hold the border. However, with the Confederacy on the wane, Lincoln fears that France may seize the opportunity to occupy the Trans-Mississippi States. President Lincoln writes a letter to General Grant which reads in part:

“I see by a despatch of yours that you incline quite strongly towards an expedition against Mobile. This would appear tempting to me also, were it not that in view of recent events in Mexico, I am greatly impressed with the importance of re-establishing the national authority in Western Texas as soon as possible.”

On this same day, Lincoln sits for a new portrait photograph at Alexander Gardiner’s studios.

August 8, 1863---The resignation of Robert E. Lee

AUGUST 8, 1863:       

Robert E. Lee, dispirited and ailing after the defeat at Gettysburg, tenders his resignation to C.S. President Jefferson Davis. Lee writes:

"I have been prompted by these reflections more than once since my return from Pennsylvania to propose to Your Excellency the propriety of selecting another commander for this army... No one is more aware than myself of my inability for the duties of my position. I cannot even accomplish what I myself desire... I, therefore, in all sincerity, request your Excellency to take measure to supply my place."

Davis refuses to accept Lee’s resignation.

August 7, 1863---C.S.S. H. L. HUNLEY

AUGUST 7, 1863:       

The C.S.S. H.L. HUNLEY, the Confederacy’s handcranked combat submarine, is dispatched to break the blockade of Charleston, South Carolina.

August 6, 1863---Garibaldi's letter to President Lincoln

AUGUST 6, 1863:   

   

In a letter, Giuseppe Garibaldi, the famed military organizer who eventually accomplished the unification of Italy, offered superlative praise to Abraham Lincoln for his issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation.  In 1862, Lincoln had offered Garibaldi a Major General’s commission to fight for the Union, but Garibaldi had refused, busy at the time leading an expedition toward Rome as part of the Italian Risorgimento.  A New York infantry regiment, the 39th, was named the “Garibaldi Guard” in his honor:

“In the midst of your titanic struggle, permit me, as another among the free children of Columbus, to send you a word of greeting and admiration for the great work you have begun. Posterity will call you the great emancipator, a more enviable title than any crown could be, and greater than any merely mundane treasure. You are a true heir of the teaching given us by Christ and by John Brown. If an entire race of human beings, subjugated into slavery by human egoism, has been restored to human dignity, to civilization and human love, this is by your doing and at the price of the most noble lives in America.

It is America, the same country which taught liberty to our forefathers, which now opens another solemn epoch of human progress. And while your tremendous courage astonishes the world, we are sadly reminded how this old Europe, which also can boast a great cause of liberty to fight for, has not found the mind or heart to equal you.”