Washington, D.C., after U.S. Grant’s Vicksburg campaign. On July 13, 1863, nine days after the Confederate garrison in Vicksburg, Mississippi, surrendered to Major General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the U.S. Army of the Tennessee and who’d overseen a 48-day siege of the town, President Abraham Lincoln penned a letter to him.
You can view the letter below; the text of the letter is immediately below:
Executive Mansion,
Washington, July 13, 1863.
My Dear General,
I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgement for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do what you finally did — march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo-Pass expedition, and the like could succeed. When you got below, and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join Gen. Banks; and when you turned Northward, East of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgement that you were right and I was wrong.
Yours very truly
(Signed) A. Lincoln
SOURCES
Lincoln, Abraham. Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833 to 1916: Abraham Lincoln to Ulysses S. Grant, Monday, Congratulations on capture of Vicksburg. 1863. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/mal2477000/.
