JULY 16, 1864.
The President of the United States directs that the four persons whose names follow, to wit, HON. Clement C. Clay, HON. Jacob Thompson, Professor James P. Holcombe, George N. Sanders, shall have safe conduct to the city of Washington in company with the HON. HORACE GREELEY, and shall be exempt from arrest or annoyance of any kind from any officer of the United States during their journey to the said city of Washington.
By order of the President: JOHN HAY, Major and Assistant Adjutant-General
TELEGRAM TO GENERAL U. S. GRANT. [WASHINGTON] July 17. 1864. 11.25 A.M.
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL GRANT, City Point, Va.:
In your dispatch of yesterday to General Sherman, I find the following, to wit:
"I shall make a desperate effort to get a position here, which will hold the enemy without the necessity of so many men."
Pressed as we are by lapse of time I am glad to hear you say this; and yet I do hope you may find a way that the effort shall not be desperate in the sense of great loss of life.
A. LINCOLN, President.