Summary:
General George McClellan writes Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Curtin in October,
1862, to inform them of Union troop positions. McClellan suggests sending newly
drafted men to Chambersburg.
His Excellency ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
President of the
United States, and
His Excellency ANDREW G. CURTIN,
Governor of
Pennsylvania:
October 30, 1862
I am about leaving this line, and leave behind me all the troops I can safely spare to hold Harper's Ferry and the line of the Upper Potomac, but I do not consider the force sufficient to prevent raids, and have so represented to Gen. Halleck, who informs me that he has no more troops to send. I leave Gen. Morell at Hagerstown, in command from mouth of Antietam up to Cumberland. I urge that you expedite as much as possible the organization of the nine-months' drafted men, that some of them may be sent, with the least possible delay, to Chambersburg, Hagerstown, Sharpsburg, Williamsport, and Hancock, to prevent the possibility of raids. If I could have filled the old Pennsylvania regiments with the drafted men, I could have left men enough to have made your frontier reasonably safe; as it is, I cannot do it with due regard to the success of the main army, and beg to warn you in time. Without reference to the safety of the frontier, I wish to urge again in the strongest terms the absolute necessity of filling the old regiments with drafted men.
GEO. B. McCLELLAN,
Maj.-Gen., Cmdg.
Bibliographic Information : Letter Reproduced from The War of The Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume 19, Serial No. 28, Pages 510, Broadfoot Publishing Company, Wilmington, NC, 1997.
