Abraham Lincoln Autograph Endorsement Signed "A. Lincoln" as president. Three pages, 5.25" x 8", Washington, D.C., Septe...
Description
Abraham Lincoln Autograph Endorsement Signed "A. Lincoln" as president. Three pages, 5.25" x 8", Washington, D.C., September 5, 1861. Six months after becoming the sixteenth president and sparking the Civil War, Lincoln endorses an appointment request written by Absalom H. Markland, "Respectfully submitted to War Department. / [Signed] A. Lincoln / Sep. 5, 1861." Lincoln initially wrote the day as the fourth of September, but he smeared the "4" and rewrote "5." Toned paper with minor separation along one fold.During the presidential campaign of 1860, he supported Abraham Lincoln and after the war began, addressed this letter "To the President of the US." from "Washington City" on September 1, 1861, offering six reasons why he should be appointment as paymaster in the army: "1st, I am a native born, loyal citizen of the state of Kentucky, a resident of the first congressional district, where but few men are now found who are willing to battle for the Constitution & the Enforcement of the laws. 2nd My qualification for the office will be readily admitted by all who know me. 3rd My integrity & moral character have never been questioned. 4th I can procure any number of recommendations. . . . 5th, I am not aware that any one else in that end of the state desires the office, and I feel that some one should be appointed from that locality as a rebuke to the disloyalty of the people thereabouts."
More Information:
Colonel Markland, a native of Kentucky, was a personal friend to Ulysses Grant. The two had met in their early teens as classmates at Maysville Seminary in Kentucky. While Grant began a career in the U.S. military, Markland studied law and migrated to Washington, D.C., in 1849 and became a government official in the Office of Indian Affairs.
At the start of the Civil War, the paymaster department had a reputation for being inefficient. Paymaster positions such as the one Markland was requesting were political appointments which Edwin Stanton's War Department quickly filled with men besides Markland. Though overlooked here, Markland was later appointed a special agent in the Post Office Department where his initial assignment was to investigate the loyalty of postmasters to the Union. General Grant, however, soon assigned him charge of mail delivery for his Army of the Tennessee. At Grant's urging, Markland transformed the slow, inefficient mail delivery to Grant's troops into a prompt, efficient service that consequently helped improve morale. Markland was given the honorary rank of colonel and served under Grant for most of the war, often carrying letters and messages between President Lincoln and generals.
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