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Sale 2
Lot 107
Lincoln, Abraham. 16th President of the United States, 1861-1865.
Autograph Note Signed One page, approximately 3 1/2" x 3 1/2", In pencil, [Washington], October 26, 1864. In the fall of 1864 things were going well enough for Abraham Lincoln, on the eve of his second run for the presidency. Sheridan had triumphed in the Shenandoah Valley and defeated the Confederates at Cedar Creek.
Out west, Confederate prisoners of war held in Chicago were about to be released and enlisted in the Union army for service against the Indians in the Northwest.
The North now had more men than when the war began. Nevada, Idaho and Montana were becoming states. Homesteaders were sweeping into 4,000,000 acres of public land. Connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by railway was all but assured.
But, in Davenport, Iowa, for want of a pen, the president could not get the Indian known as "Big Eagle" released from jail.
Apparently, on the 26th of October, 1864, a lawyer and banker from Davenport, one George S.C. Dow, had visited Lincoln urging the President to order the release of the Indian "Big Eagle," currently being held in the Davenport jail - on what grounds, we do not know.
Whatever persuasion Dow used, it must have been convincing enough, because Mr. Lincoln took up a scrap of paper about three inches square, and, retrieving a pencil from somewhere, wrote out in a large, clear hand, so that there would be no mistaking his intent, "Let the Indian 'Big Eagle,' now confined at Davenport, Iowa, be discharged at once." Lincoln signed the piece, "A. Lincoln" and dated it "Oct. 26, 1864."
And that, as far as the president was concerned, was that.
Alas, not quite.
On November 14, Mr. Dow wrote Lincoln the following note:"You will remember me as the person to whom you were kind enough to give an order for the release of the Indian 'Big Eagle.'
"This order failed to effect his release. The person in charge and to whom I presented it, treated me very rudely. I may as well say that he insulted me most grossly. He treated also the order and yourself with great contempt because as he said, you ought to know better than to write an order in pencil, or give it to a civilian.
"I did not intend to trouble you again, but for reasons not necessary to be stated, I think I should report the facts to you, and request of you, that you will be kind enough to direct a note to the proper military officer, requesting him to issue the proper order for 'Big Eagle's' discharge…"
The Dow letter we find among the Robert Todd Lincoln papers at the Library of Congress, but Lincoln's original pencil discharge order written on 26 October, we offer here and now. It has been preserved by being mounted to a cardboard backing and is in fine condition.
Following the receipt of Dow's communication, Lincoln quickly penned a second directive to get "Big Eagle" unpenned. The date was 19 November 1864. This time Lincoln sent a telegram to General Alfred Sully, the Officer in Command of the District of Iowa with headquarters at Davenport: "Let the Indian 'Big Eagle' be discharged. I ordered this some time ago." On December 3, 1864, AGO Special Orders No. 430 directed that " 'Big Eagle,' an Indian, now in confinement at Davenport, Iowa, will, upon the receipt of this Order, be immediately released from confinement and set at liberty."
Who was "Big Eagle" and why was he confined, and what became of him following his release from the Davenport jail, we do not know, but we do know the President Lincoln's manner and style were never in doubt. Two days later, on 21 November, he would enshrine Lydia Bixby for her loyalty and heroic sacrifice in the reported loss of so many of her sons to the Union cause. We speak of this now, because Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Bixby follows directly Lincoln's salvo to Alfred Sully on "Big Eagle's" continued confinement in Basler's "Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln."
Estimated Value $800 - 12,000.
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