Treasury Department be vacated, if the articles have not passed
without the United States, and the articles stopped. That the Secretary
of War hold possession of the arms, etc., recently seized by his order at
Rouse's Point, bound for Canada.

A. LINCOLN.

DELAYING TACTICS OF GENERALS

TO GENERAL N. P. BANKS.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, November 22, 1862.

MY DEAR GENERAL BANKS:--Early last week you left me in high hope with your
assurance that you would be off with your expedition at the end of that
week, or early in this. It is now the end of this, and I have just been
overwhelmed and confounded with the sight of a requisition made by you
which, I am assured, cannot be filled and got off within an hour short of
two months. I enclose you a copy of the requisition, in some hope that
it is not genuine--that you have never seen it. My dear General, this
expanding and piling up of impedimenta has been, so far, almost our ruin,
and will be our final ruin if it is not abandoned. If you had the articles
of this requisition upon the wharf, with the necessary animals to make
them of any use, and forage for the animals, you could not get vessels
together in two weeks to carry the whole, to say nothing of your twenty
thousand men; and, having the vessels, you could not put the cargoes
aboard in two weeks more. And, after all, where you are going you have no
use for them. When you parted with me you had no such ideas in your mind.
I know you had not, or you could not have expected to be off so soon as
you said. You must get back to something like the plan you had then, or
your expedition is a failure before you start. You must be off before
Congress meets. You would be better off anywhere, and especially where
you are going, for not having a thousand wagons doing nothing but hauling
forage to feed the animals that draw them, and taking at least two
thousand men to care for the wagons and animals, who otherwise might be
two thousand good soldiers. Now, dear General, do not think this is an
ill-natured letter; it is the very reverse. The simple publication of this
requisition would ruin you.

Very truly your friend,

A. LINCOLN.

TO CARL SCHURZ.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, November 24, 1862.

GENERAL CARL SCHURZ.

MY DEAR SIR--I have just received and read your letter of the 20th. The
purport of it is that we lost the late elections and the administration
is failing because the war is unsuccess