Lincoln, Abraham. Autograph letter signed as President, 3 April 1862....

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Lincoln, Abraham. Autograph letter signed as President, 3 April 1862. Autograph letter signed ("A. Lincoln") as President, 2 pages (5 x 8 in.; 127 x 203 mm.), front and back, on printed "Executive Mansion Washington" letterhead stationery, 3 April 1862, written to Quarter-Master General - Montgomery Meigs, Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army. Toning from mounting remnant on single edge on verso; spot affecting single word on verso, not affecting signature. Lincoln shows his frustration at being called upon to decide an officer's fate, sight unseen, after authorizing his relocation months earlier Lincoln writes in full: My dear Sir, Hon. George Ashmun comes to me with Capt. Eddy, to get a word from me favorable to his being assigned to duty at New-York. I do not personally know Capt. Eddy, so as to be able to get a personal favor for him; yet I protest now, as heretofore, that my asking to have him relieved from duty in Illinois, shall, to no extent, be set down to his disadvantage. I neither know, nor have allowed myself to believe anything against him. And I shall be glad for you to place him, that he may not be able to think he has suffered any by my action. Yours truly A. Lincoln According to The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. New Brunswick, N.J., University Press, 1953, Volume V, page 178, which has only a portion of the above letter transcribed, Captain Asher R. Eddy of Rhode Island, a graduate of West Point, served as Quartermaster for Illinois and Wisconsin, at Springfield, Illinois, from 27 September 1861 - 25 January 1862. At the end of December, 1861, President Lincoln entered into his first correspondence with Quartermaster Meigs regarding Captain Eddy after he learned of a problem between the Illinois state government and the Quartermaster's Office in Springfield: "It is a necessity that Capt. Eddy should not be retained in service at Springfield, Illinois. In this, I am neither deciding, nor saying anything against Capt. Eddy. I mean this only - we must have the hearty cooperation of the State Government there, and a 'snarl' has somehow been gotten up between him and them, which must be broken up. Please send some other Quarter Master there, letting Capt. Eddy go somewhere else equally important." (28 December 1861). Two months later, on 27 February 1862, Lincoln's old Illinois friend, Jesse Kilgore Dubois, Illinois State Auditor, telegraphed the President: "In defiance of your authority Quartermaster Eddy is still here and is making mischief. I urge that he & all his Assistants be immediately sent away." Now, a little over a month later, Eddy again comes to his attention as the result of another request from a close friend, former Congressman George Ashmun, who had served as Chairman of the Republican National Convention in Chicago (1860) and, after Lincoln's election, often served as Lincoln's advisor. A second time in just over a month, the President has been asked to take actions by his close friends and advisors and decide the fate of the unknown officer - and his frustration with being "in the dark" shows, as he protests: I neither know, nor have allowed myself to believe anything against him.