with the powers exercised hitherto by the military governor of Louisiana. Yours truly, ABRAHAM LINCOLN. TELEGRAM TO GOVERNOR MURPHY WASHINGTON, D. C., March 16, 1864. Governor Isaac Murphy, Little Rock, Ark.: What of your election on the fourteenth? A. LINCOLN. LETTER TO JOHN A. J. CRESWELL EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 17, 1864. My dear Sir: It needs not to be a secret that I wish success to emancipation in Maryland. It would aid much to end the rebellion. Hence it is a matter of national consequence, in which every national man may rightfully feel a deep interest. I sincerely hope the friends of the measure will allow no minor considerations to divide and distract them. TELEGRAM TO GENERAL B. F. BUTLER EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 17, 1864. Major-General Butler, Fort Monroe, Va.: If you obtain the remains of Colonel Dahlgren, please notify me instantly, so that I can let his afflicted relatives know. A. LINCOLN. DRAFT OF LETTER TO SECRETARY STANTON 1 M EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 18, 1864. Y DEAR SIR: I am so pressed in regard to prisoners of war in our custody, whose homes are within our lines, and who wish to not be exchanged, but to take the oath and be discharged, that I hope you will pardon me for again calling up the subject. My impression is that we will not ever force the exchange of any of this class; that, taking the oath and being discharged, none of them will again go to the rebellion; but the rebellion again coming to them, a considerable percentage of them, probably not a majority, would rejoin it; that, by a cautious discrimination, the number so discharged would not be large enough to do any considerable mischief in any event, will relieve distress in at least some meritorious cases, and would give me some relief from an intolerable pressure. I shall be glad, therefore, to have your cheerful assent to the discharge of those whose names I may send, which I will only do with circumspection. 1 Only the first paragraph of this was actually sent. The President's leniency was constantly in conflict with army discipline. In using the strong hand, as now compelled to do, the government has a difficult duty to perform. At the very best it will by turns do both too little and too much. It can properly have no motive of revenge, no purpose to punish merely for punishment's sake. While we must by all available means prevent the overthrow of the government, we should avoid planting and cultivating too many thorns in the bosom of society. These general remarks apply to several classes of cases, on each of which I wish to say a word. First. The dismissal of officers when neither incompetency, nor intentional wrong, nor real injury to the service, is imputed. In such cases it is both cruel and impolitic to crush the man and make him and his friends permanent enemies to the administration if not to the government itself. I think of two instances: one wherein a surgeon, for the benefit of patients in his charge, needed some lumber, and could only get it by making a false certificate wherein the lumber was denominated "butter and eggs," and he was dismissed for the false certificate; the other a surgeon by the name of Owen, who served from the beginning of the war till recently with two servants, and without objection, when upon discovery that the servants were his own sons he was dismissed. Another class consists of those who are known or strongly suspected to be in sympathy with the rebellion. An instance of this is the family of Southern, who killed a recruiting officer last autumn in Maryland. He fled, and his family are driven from their home without a shelter or crumb, except when got by burdening our friends more than our enemies. Southern had no justification to kill the officer, and yet he would not have been killed if he had proceeded in the temper and manner agreed upon by yourself and Governor Bradford; but this is past. What is to be done with the family? Why can they not occupy the old home and excite much less opposition to the government than the manifestation of their distress is now doing? If the house is really needed for the public service, or if it has been regularly confiscated and the title transferred, the case is different. Again, the cases of persons, mostly women, wishing to pass our lines one way or the other. We have in some cases been apparently if not really, inconsistent upon this subject-that is, we have forced some to go who wished to stay, and forced others to stay who wished to go. Suppose we allow all females with ungrown children of either sex to go South, if they desire, upon absolute prohibition against returning during the war; and all to come North upon the same condition of not returning during the war, and the additional condition of taking the oath. I wish to mention two special cases, both of which you well remember. The first is that of Yocum. He was unquestionably guilty. No one asking for his pardon pretends the contrary. What he did, however, was perfectly lawful only a short while before, and the change making it unlawful had not, even then, been fully accepted in the public mind. It is doubtful whether Yocum did not suppose it was really lawful to return a slave to a loyal owner, though it is certain he did the thing secretly, in the belief that his superiors would not allow it if known to them. But the great point with me is that the severe punishment of five years at hard labor in the penitentiary is not at all necessary to prevent the repetition of the crime by himself or by others. If the offense was one of frequent recurrence, the case would be different; but the case of Yocum is the single instance which has come to my knowledge. I think that for all public purposes, and for all proper purposes, he has suffered enough. The case of Smithson is troublesome. His wife and children are quartered mostly on our friends, and exciting a great deal of sympathy, which will soon tell against us. What think you of sending him and his family South, holding |