 |
|
New Lincoln letter added to archives
[May 29, 2009]
WASHINGTON (AP)
--
In the new letter, Lincoln asked his treasury secretary, Salmon Chase, to allow the fired head of the U.S. Mint in San Francisco, Robert Stevens, to review the charges that led to his removal. Lincoln had appointed Stevens as a favor to Oregon Sen. Edward Baker, the ousted director's father-in-law.
|
"This letter, while seemingly routine, is an extremely important key to understanding President Lincoln's relationship with Sen. Baker," said James Hastings, director of access programs at the archives. "It shows his interest, even in the midst of the Civil War, in political issues on the West Coast." The letter is written on yellowed stationery simply marked Executive Mansion, Washington, with a dashed line where the date -- Nov. 14, 1863 -- was filled in by hand. This was five days before Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address. The archives says it was torn years earlier from a bound volume of Chase's correspondence with government officials. The removal occurred before the book of letters was inducted into the archives. Specialists at the archives will reattach the letter to the place it was torn from the book. "We will have this piece of the puzzle now where it belongs and scholars can now interpret its importance to this critical period," Hastings said. The letter was donated to the National Archives by Lawrence Cutler, a private collector from Scottsdale, Ariz. Cutler said he bought the letter at auction about three years ago. He was contacted the following year by the archives, which believed the letter belonged in its custody. He said he waited until Lincoln's bicentennial to donate the item. Cutler declined to say how much he paid for it. ___ On the Net: National Archives: |
