LINCOLN, Abraham, President . Autograph letter signed ("A. Lincoln") as President, TO SECRETARY OF WAR EDWIN M. STANTON, Washington, D.C., 31 December 1863. "LET IT BE DONE": ONE OF THE EARLIEST PARDONS GRANTED UNDER LINCOLN'S "PROCLAMATION OF AMNESTY AND RECONSTRUCTION," FREEING A CONFEDERATE "CONSCRIPTED IN THE REBEL SERVICE AND NOW OUR PRISONER" Only three weeks before this emphatic order, Lincoln had issued his important Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction of December 8, 1863, which offered pardons to Confederates who took an oath to support the Constitution and not to take arms against the Federal government. The present letter, citing this proclamation to secure the release of the nephew of a Springfield friend, represents one of the President's earliest invocations of the famous "oath of December 8." Lincoln writes, "Hon. Sec. Of War John Tipton, an acquaintance of mine, in the county of my residence [Sangamon], represents that he has lost one brother, and has another crippled for life, in our service, and that he has a nephew - M.P.Davis - who was conscripted in the rebel service and is now our prisoner at Camp Douglas [Illinois]. He asks that the nephew, may be discharged on taking the oath. Let it be done. Yours truly. A. Lincoln." From the death in May 1861 of the young Elmer Ellsworth--who had studied law in Lincoln's Springfield offices--Lincoln was painfully aware of the devasting impact of the war upon the families of the combatants on both sides of the conflict. The best-known example of Lincoln's sensitivity is his well-known letter to the widow Bixby, erroneously represented to have lost five sons in the war. But there are many other examples, like the present, of Lincoln taking action, to the extent he could, to mitigate the sufferings of bereaved families and family members in prison as Confederate sympathizers. In the 16 months of bloody warfare to follow, there were literally hundreds of occasions on which Lincoln would invoke the act of December 8, 1863 to allow the release of prisoners of war and detainees, trusting on the recommendation of family, friends or clergy that they would honor their oath. John Tipton, Lincoln's Springfield acquaintance, had a brother, Sargeant Isaac H. Tipton, Co. I, Seventh Illinois Volunteers, who died at Louisville in April 1862 and another, Private Landon P. Tipton, serving in the same unit. No information on their Confederate nephew, M.P. Davis, pardoned here, has yet come to light. Published in Collected Works , ed R. P. Basler, 7:100.
LINCOLN, Abraham, President . Autograph letter signed ("A. Lincoln") as President, TO SECRETARY OF WAR EDWIN M. STANTON, Washington, D.C., 31 December 1863. "LET IT BE DONE": ONE OF THE EARLIEST PARDONS GRANTED UNDER LINCOLN'S "PROCLAMATION OF AMNESTY AND RECONSTRUCTION," FREEING A CONFEDERATE "CONSCRIPTED IN THE REBEL SERVICE AND NOW OUR PRISONER" Only three weeks before this emphatic order, Lincoln had issued his important Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction of December 8, 1863, which offered pardons to Confederates who took an oath to support the Constitution and not to take arms against the Federal government. The present letter, citing this proclamation to secure the release of the nephew of a Springfield friend, represents one of the President's earliest invocations of the famous "oath of December 8." Lincoln writes, "Hon. Sec. Of War John Tipton, an acquaintance of mine, in the county of my residence [Sangamon], represents that he has lost one brother, and has another crippled for life, in our service, and that he has a nephew - M.P.Davis - who was conscripted in the rebel service and is now our prisoner at Camp Douglas [Illinois]. He asks that the nephew, may be discharged on taking the oath. Let it be done. Yours truly. A. Lincoln." From the death in May 1861 of the young Elmer Ellsworth--who had studied law in Lincoln's Springfield offices--Lincoln was painfully aware of the devasting impact of the war upon the families of the combatants on both sides of the conflict. The best-known example of Lincoln's sensitivity is his well-known letter to the widow Bixby, erroneously represented to have lost five sons in the war. But there are many other examples, like the present, of Lincoln taking action, to the extent he could, to mitigate the sufferings of bereaved families and family members in prison as Confederate sympathizers. In the 16 months of bloody warfare to follow, there were literally hundreds of occasions on which Lincoln would invoke the act of December 8, 1863 to allow the release of prisoners of war and detainees, trusting on the recommendation of family, friends or clergy that they would honor their oath. John Tipton, Lincoln's Springfield acquaintance, had a brother, Sargeant Isaac H. Tipton, Co. I, Seventh Illinois Volunteers, who died at Louisville in April 1862 and another, Private Landon P. Tipton, serving in the same unit. No information on their Confederate nephew, M.P. Davis, pardoned here, has yet come to light. Published in Collected Works , ed R. P. Basler, 7:100.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
