Lincoln Urgent in Lost Letter to General

Plante said that morning he chanced on a tattered folder labeled "telegrams received by Halleck." Inside, he said, he spotted the note in the dim light, recognized Lincoln's handwriting and thought, "Whoa!"

But it was not until he researched further that he discovered that while historians had quoted the telegram, no one had ever cited the original note. He said he realized: "Hey, this is even more important than I thought it was."

Plante said it is not certain exactly where Lincoln wrote the note, nor where Halleck received it, but both were in Washington. Meade, who had been in command of the Army of the Potomac only about a week, had just left Gettysburg en route to Frederick in pursuit of the enemy.

Lincoln, tormented by incompetent commanders in the first years of the war, often prodded his generals to take action. He once famously goaded Gen. George B. McClellan by asking to borrow McClellan's army since the general didn't seem to be using it.

Now Lincoln was urging Halleck to urge Meade to go after Lee.

After Halleck telegraphed the note to Meade, he continued to badger Meade to attack. Meade, whose army had been battered at Gettysburg, finally took offense and offered to resign. Halleck backed down, Plante said, but on the afternoon of the 14th, as the rebels splashed to safety, an anguished Lincoln took pen to paper and wrote to Meade:

"My dear general, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war.

"As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely," Lincoln wrote. "Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasureably because of it."

It was one of the harshest letters Lincoln wrote during the war. And he never sent it.

Instead, he wrote on the envelope: "To Gen. Meade, never sent, or signed."

Plante said that letter and the envelope, now in the Library of Congress, came to light years ago, but not during Meade's lifetime.