WAR DEPARTMENTS,

Washington City, D. C., August 21, 1862.

Governor CURTIN,

Harrisburg, Pa.:

The time will not be extended to raise a regiment of Germans and Irish. Bounties will not be paid after the date specified in the order of the Department.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, D. C., August 21, 1862.

Governor PEIRPOINT,

Wheeling, Va.:

You are authorized to receive the four or five companies of cavalry to fill up the Third Virginia Regiment, and as many more cavalry as you can raise within thirty days.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

EXECUTIVE MANSION,

Washington, August 22, 1862.

Honorable HORACE GREELEY:

DEAR SIR: I have just reed yours of the 19th addressed to myself through the New York Tribune.* If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I 'seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the National authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by feeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correhown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

---------------

* Published in the New York Tribune of August 20, 1862.

---------------

28 R R-SERIES III, VOL II