Abraham Lincoln to Ulysses Simpson Grant, July 13, 1863

Source citation
Abraham Lincoln to Ulysses Simpson Grant, July 13, 1863, Washington, DC, Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/malhome.html.
Type
Letter
Date Certainty
Exact
Transcriber
Transcribed by the Lincoln Studies Center, Knox College, Galesburg, IL
Adapted by Don Sailer, Dickinson College
The following transcript has been adapted from the Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress.

Washington, July 13, 1863.

My Dear General

I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgement for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do what you finally did -- march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo-Pass expedition, and the like could succeed. When you got below, and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join Gen. Banks; and when you turned Northward, East of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgement that you were right and I was wrong.

Yours very truly

(Signed) A. Lincoln

After forty-seven days of intense siege, Vicksburg surrenders to Grant's Army of the Tennessee
Vicksburg Campaign
Author
Recipient
Port Gibson, MS
Vicksburg, MS
Washington, DC
How to Cite This Page: "Abraham Lincoln to Ulysses Simpson Grant, July 13, 1863," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/26624.