[Footnote 1: Grant's conviction that the essential purpose of the
war was not the abolition of slavery as an end in itself, but the
preservation of the Union at all costs was identical with that of
Lincoln. This letter can properly be compared with the well-known
letter written by Lincoln to Greeley on the third of August,
1862, in which Lincoln says: "My paramount object in this
struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or to
destroy slavery." Lincoln understood that the task accepted by
him as President as the leader in the contest for national
existence made the maintenance of the Union his chief, if not for
the time being his only responsibility. He had, however, placed
himself on record in many utterances to the effect that if the
republic were to be preserved, slavery must be, in the first
place, restricted, and finally destroyed. It is probable that in
this matter Grant did not go so far as Lincoln. In any case, in
common with the President, he devoted himself simply to the duty
immediately before him.]
[The battlefield referred to is Belmont. According to the _Memoirs_,
the loss of national troops, killed, wounded, and missing, was 485;
that of the Confederates, 642. Number of Union troops engaged was 2500
men; that of Confederates, 7000.]
Cairo, Illinois,
November 28th, 1861.