Beschreibung:

LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, President . Printed document signed ("Abraham Lincoln" as President, countersigned by Secretary of War Edward M. Stanton, Washington, D.C., 16 March 1863. One page, large folio, ON FINE PARCHMENT, elaborately engraved, accomplished in manuscript, bright blue circular seal of the United States at upper left, finely engraved with bold heading "The President of the United States," beneath which an American Eagle and the "E Pluribus Unum" motto, large vignette of crossed flags, cannons and other military paraphenalia at bottom, with small legend "Engraved by J. V .N. and C. H. Throop, Washn. City," the accomplishments and signatures unfaded. Lincoln appoints James B[irdseye] McPherson Major General of Volunteers. LINCOLN'S APPOINTMENT OF JAMES BIRDSEYE MCPHERSON, ONE OF THE HIGHEST RANKING UNION OFFICERS KILLED IN BATTLE This appointment represents one of the most important Lincoln military commissions to appear at auction in some time. James Birdseye McPherson (1828-1864), raised in poverty in a village in Ohio, attended a local school through the generosity of a neighbor and eventually enrolled at West Point, where he graduated in 1853 ranked first in his class (among his classmates were John Bell Hood and Philip D. Sheridan). McPherson served in the Engineer Corps, and, among other assignments, supervised the construction of fortifications on Alcatraz Island. After war broke out, "no Union officer had a more meteoric rise than McPherson" (E.J. Warner Generals in Blue , 1964, 307). In August 1861 he was a lowly first lieutenant of engineers, but less than a year later ranked as a major general of volunteers and commanded a division. He served as a staff officer to Henry W. Halleck, was promoted to Brigadier General of volunteers in May 1862 and was U.S. Grant's Chief Engineer at Forts Henry and Donelson, at Shiloh, and during the siege of Corinth. His appointment as Major General of Volunteers was made in October 1862 (although the present confirming document signed by the President was not executed until March 1863), and in January 1863 McPherson was given command of the XVII Corps, one of the three corps which fought under Grant throughout the subsequent Vicksburg campaign (W.T. Sherman commanded the XVth, John McClernand the XIIIth). On 26 March 1864 the 36-year-old McPherson succeeded W.T. Sherman as commander of the Army of the Tennessee (Sherman had been promoted to take Grant's place as commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi; Grant had been assigned command of all Union armies). McPherson served under Sherman during the hard-fought Georgia campaigns. Sherman refers to McPherson and his important role in that campaign at many places in his Memoirs , and describes his final conference with his young commander during the Battle of Atlanta on 22 July 1864. The two were alarmed by intensifying musketry and shelling in the distance, so McPherson "hastily gathered his papers...and jumped on his horse, saying he would hurry down his line and send me back word what these sounds meant." Unknown to them, the Confederate commander, John Bell Hood (McPherson's former classmate) had launched a massive counterattack against the Union left flank. MacPherson, with a single orderly, was accosted in a wooded area overrun by rebel skirmishers and when he tried to evade capture was killed by a single musket-ball. See Sherman's account, in his Memoirs , Library of America edition, pp.549-552. Grant recorded that with McPherson's death "the army lost one of its ablest, purest and best generals" ( Memoirs , Library of America edition, p. 506). Grant composed an eloquent letter of condolence to McPherson's grandmother (bid, p.1063). According to a reliable private source, McPherson was one of only 11 Union Army Major Generals killed in action during the Civil War. fter war broke out, "no Union officer had a more meteoric rise than McPherson" (E.J. Warner Generals in Blu e , 1964, 307). In August 1861 he was