January 8, 1862 (Thursday): From the Desk of the President

Hazen Monument Stones River (nps.gov)

JANUARY 8, 1863
General BURNSIDE:
    I understand General Halleck has sent you a letter of which this is a copy. I approve this letter. I deplore the want of concurrence with you in opinion by your general officers, but I do not see the remedy. Be cautious, and do not understand that the Government or country is driving you. I do not yet see how I could profit by changing the command of the Army of the Potomac, and if I did, I should not wish to do it by accepting the resignation of your commission.


     A. LINCOLN.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, January 8, 1863.
Governor JOHNSON, Nashville, Tenn.:
    A dispatch of yesterday from Nashville says:
The body of Captain Todd, of Sixth Kentucky, brought in to-day.
Please tell me what was his Christian name, and whether he was in our service or that of the enemy. I shall also be glad to have your impression as to the effect the late operations about Murfreesborough will have on the prospects of Tennessee.


     A. LINCOLN.


Official Records, Series I., Vol. 21, Part 1, Page 954.

Official Records, Series I., Vol. 20, Part 2,  Page 309.

Burnside was two weeks away from the start of what history would record as "The Mud March".  Lincoln was invested in Burnside, whether from a sense of fairness or the lack of a better alternative.  In the lower dispatch Lincoln is asking about a Union captain killed at the battle of Stones River, no doubt thinking he might be a relative of his wife.  Charles S. Todd was indeed a Unionist relative of his wife's from Shelbyville, Kentucky and is one of the 55 men buried next to the Hazen monument at Stone's River.