Nonsense! If you can't now live _with_ the land, how will you then
live without it? You have always been kind to me, and I do not now
mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but follow
my advice, you will find it worth more than eight times eighty
dollars to you.

Affectionately your brother,

A. LINCOLN.


Executive Mansion,
Washington, April 30, 1864.

Lieutenant-General Grant,--

Not expecting to see you again before the spring campaign opens, I
wish to express, in this way, my entire satisfaction with what you
have done up to this time, so far as I understand it. The
particulars of your plans I neither know, or seek to know. You are
vigilant and self reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to
obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. While I am very
anxious that any great disaster, or the capture of our men in great
numbers, shall be avoided, I know these points are less likely to
escape your attention than they would be mine. If there is anything
wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me
know it.

And now with a brave Army, and a just cause, may God sustain you.