FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES:

In all exigencies it becomes a nation carefully to scrutinize its line of conduct, humbly to approach the Throne of Grace, and meekly to implore forgiveness, wisdom, and guidance.

For reasons known only to Him it has been decreed that this country should be the scene of unparalleded outrage, and this nation the monumental sufferer of the nineteenth century. With a heavy heart, but an undiminished confidence in our cause, I approach the performance of duty, rendered imperative by my sense of weakness before the Almighty, and of justice to the people.

It is not necessary that I should tell you that the first Virginia campaign under Lieutenant-General Grant, in whom I have every confidence, and whose courage and fidelity the people do well to honor is virtually closed.

He has conducted his great enterprise with discreet ability.

He has inflicted great loss upon the enemy. He has crippled their strength and defeated their plans.

In view, however, of the situation in Virginia, the disaster at Red River, the delay at Charleston, and the general state of the country, I, Abraham Lincoln, do hereby recommend that Thursday, the twenty-sixth day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four be solemnly set apart throughout these United States as a day of fasting,humiliation, and prayer.

Deeming, furthermore, that the present condition of public affairs presents an extraordinary occasion, and in view of the pending expiration of the service of 100,000 of our troops, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power vested in me by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the citizens of the United States between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years to the aggregate number of 400,000, in order to suppress the existing rebellious combinations and to cause the due execution of the laws.

And furthermore, in case any State or number of States shall fail to furnish by the fifteenth day of June next their assigned quotas, it is hereby ordered that the same be raised by an immediate and peremptory draft.

The details for this object will be communicated the State authorities through the War Department. I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our national Union, and the perpetuity of popular government.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this seventeenth day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

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