OCTOBER 1, 1862: President Lincoln overrides the objections of some of his cabinet and travels by train to Army of the Potomac headquarters at Antietam, where, for three days, he views the battlefield, reviews the troops, and converses with General McClellan and his officers. Noting that the army seems well rested, battle-ready, and eager for action, the president presses McClellan to pursue Lee’s Confederates.⁷⁶

OCTOBER 3–4, 1862: Twenty-two thousand Confederates under Sterling Price and Earl Van Dorn attack Corinth, Mississippi, which has been occupied by Union forces for more than four months (see May 24, 1862). In addition to General William Rosecrans’s twenty-three thousand Federals, the Rebels meet with a series of almost biblical challenges—including heat, water shortages, and three earthquake tremors—as they try to regain Corinth as a base for operations into Tennessee. Though they make some headway, at one point pushing the Federals back to their interior line, they are forced to withdraw on the second day of this intense clash that causes some five thousand Union and Confederate casualties. As the Southerners withdraw, President Lincoln concludes an impromptu address at a Maryland railroad station on his way back to Washington from Antietam with a poignant wish for the future: “May our children and our children’s children to a thousand generations, continue to enjoy the benefits conferred upon us by a united country.”⁷⁷

OCTOBER 7, 1862: Though his first reaction to the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was to call it “infamous,” and he briefly considered opposing the proclamation publicly, today General George McClellan issues a general order reminding his officers—many of whom are equally disgruntled by the president’s action—that the military is subordinate to civilian authority. He adds, apparently with the fast-approaching midterm elections in mind, “The remedy for political errors, if any are committed, is to be found only in the action of the people at the polls.” In Washington, General in Chief Halleck fumes, in a letter to his wife, that McClellan “has lain still twenty days since the battle of Antietam. I cannot persuade him to advance an inch.” Even the president’s recently concluded visit to Antietam (see October 1, 1862) and a follow-up presidential order directing McClellan to “cross the Potomac and give battle to the enemy or drive him south” have not inspired McClellan to pursue Lee’s army. The continuous barrage of complaints and excuses that the Army of the Potomac commander sends in response to the chief executive’s subsequent exhortations to action will result, on October 24, in an uncharacteristically testy Lincoln telegram: “I have just read your dispatch about sore-tongued and fatigued horses. Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?”⁷⁸