What Next? (Lincoln's Question to Hooker)

This entry a letter from Abraham Lincoln  to General J. Hooker.  Hooker has just lost 11,000 men in the Battle of Chancellorsville.

May 7, 1863

MY DEAR SIR:--The recent movement of your army is ended without effecting its object, except, perhaps, some important breakings of the enemy's communications.  What next? If possible, I would be very glad of another movement early enough to give us some benefit from the fact of the enemy's communication being broken; but neither for this reason nor any other do I wish anything done in desperation or rashness. An early movement would also help to supersede the bad moral effect of the recent one, which is said to be considerably injurious. Have you already in your mind a plan wholly or partially formed? If you have, prosecute it without interference from me. If you have not, please inform me, so that I, incompetent as I may be, can try and assist in the formation of some plan for the army.

Yours as ever, A. LINCOLN.

Major General Joseph Hooker
Library of Congress

Yours as ever, A. LINCOLN.