to General Steele:

"I understand that Congress declines to admit to seats the persons sent
as senators and representatives from Arkansas. These persons apprehend
that in consequence you may not support the new State government there
as you otherwise would. My wish is that you give that government and the
people there the same support and protection that you would if the
members had been admitted, because in no event, nor in any view of the
case, can this do any harm, while it will be the best you can do toward
suppressing the rebellion."

While Military Governor Andrew Johnson had been the earliest to begin
the restoration of loyal Federal authority in the State of Tennessee,
the course of campaign and battle in that State delayed its completion
to a later period than in the others. The invasion of Tennessee by the
Confederate General Bragg in the summer of 1862, and the long delay of
the Union General Rosecrans to begin an active campaign against him
during the summer of 1863, kept civil reorganization in a very uncertain
and chaotic condition. When at length Rosecrans advanced and occupied
Chattanooga, President Lincoln deemed it a propitious time to vigorously
begin reorganization, and under date of September 11, 1863, he wrote the
military governor emphatic suggestions that:

"The reinauguration must not be such as to give control of the State and
its representation in Congress to the enemies of the Union, driving its
friends there into political exile.... You must have it otherwise. Let
the reconstruction be the work of such men only as can be trusted for
the Union. Exclude all others; and trust that your government so
organized will be recognized here as being the one of republican form to
be guaranteed to the State, and to be protected against invasion and
domestic violence. It is something on the question of time to remember
that it cannot be known who is next to occupy the position I now hold,
nor what he will do. I see that you have declared in favor of
emancipation in Tennessee, for which, may God bless you. Get
emancipation into your new State government--constitution--and there
will be no such word as fail for your case."

In another letter of September 19, the President sent the governor
specific authority to execute the scheme outlined in his letter of
advice; but no substantial success had yet been reached in the process
of reconstruction in Tennessee during the year 1864, when the
Confederate army