Lincoln Note Urging Pursuit Of Gen. Lee Is Discovered

By PETE YOST The Associated Press

Published: Jun 8, 2007

WASHINGTON - The National Archives on Thursday unveiled a handwritten note by Abraham Lincoln exhorting his generals to pursue Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's army after the Battle of Gettysburg, underscoring one of the great missed opportunities for an early end to the Civil War.

An archives Civil War specialist discovered the note, which was written on July 7, 1863, three weeks ago in a batch of military papers stored among the billions of pages of historical documents at the mammoth building on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The text of Lincoln's message to Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck, then Army chief of staff, already was known because Halleck telegraphed the content to the front lines at Gettysburg, Pa. There, the Union army's leaders failed for more than a week to aggressively pursue Lee after his defeat.

A week after Lincoln's note, the Confederate army slipped across the Potomac River into Virginia and the war continued for two more years.

Though Gen. George Meade led the Northern troops in the Battle at Gettysburg that marked the turning point of the war, he always has been faulted for not closing in and destroying Lee's army.

Archivist Trevor Plante said he was looking for something else last month when he found Lincoln's note tucked away in a drawer among other papers. Lincoln's note says "the rebellion will be over" if only "Gen. Meade can complete his work." Lincoln says he wants the "substantial destruction of Lee's army."

Plante's find reinforces "Lincoln's desperation to turn Gettysburg not just into victory but decisive victory that stops the bloodshed," said historian Allen Guelzo, director of Civil War era studies at Gettysburg College.

Lincoln wrote the missive on War Department stationery, an indication that he was with his generals when he did so, and Halleck's telegram to Meade quoted it verbatim and was sent the same day.

In June 1863, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, seeking supplies and a victory in the North, left central Virginia and crossed the Potomac into Union territory. Lee's men initially met little resistance, but they were forced to retreat after a defeat July 3 in the famous three-day battle at Gettysburg.

On July 4, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant split the South in two by winning a separate campaign in Vicksburg, Miss., on the Mississippi River.

In the letter, Lincoln wrote:

"We have certain information that Vicksburg surrendered to General Grant on the 4th of July. Now, if Gen. Meade can complete his work so gloriously prosecuted thus far, by the litteral or substantial destruction of Lee's army, the rebellion will be over."

"You can kind of feel he's sensing the end is near," said Plante. He said Lincoln often misspelled the word "literal."

Information from McClatchy Newspapers was used in this report.