LINCOLN, Abraham. Autograph endorsement signed ("A. Lincoln") as President, COUNTER-SIGNED BY PRESIDENT ANDREW JOHNSON, Lincoln's endorsement comprising 3 lines plus date and signature, [Washington, D.C.], 14 APRIL 1865. 1 page, an oblong, 3¾ x 1¾ in., probably cut from a larger document, neatly inlaid with a portrait, soiled. GOOD FRIDAY, 1865: IN ONE OF HIS LAST OFFICIAL ACTS BEFORE HIS ASSASSINATION, LINCOLN GRANTS AMNESTY TO A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE PRISONERS A document recording an act of mercy by the President whose life would be violently taken by an assassin within a scant twenty-four hours. Having been written and signed by the President on that fateful day, it constitutes one of a handful of documents with that date still in private hands. And, since it carries the extra endorsement of President Andrew Johnson--no doubt added after Lincoln's death--it is ONE OF ONLY THREE OR FOUR SUCH PARDONS SIGNED BY BOTH THE 16TH AND 17TH PRESIDENTS. During the late phases of the war, with the collapse of the Confederacy, many Confederate prisoners, civilian and military, sought release from Union imprisonment under terms first promulgated by Lincoln in his December 1863 Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconciliation. It permitted Confederates who took a prescribed oath not to act against the Federal government, to be pardoned and released. Lincoln was appealed to on many occasions and in a great many, would simply turn over the letter containing the appeal and add a note like this one on the back (see, for example, lot 261). In other cases, he added the pardon on one of the small blank cards he habitually used. "Let these men be released on taking the oath of Dec. 8, 1863. Apr. 14 1865. A. Lincoln." There is no mystery behind the existence of a few such endorsements, countersigned by Johnson. Lincon must have signed them on Friday, April 14. It is likely they remained on his desk at the end of that day, waiting to be passed on. After Lincoln's death, his scrawled order might not have carried the full authority of the Chief Executive, so, to ensure his predecessor's order was carried out and the individual in question released, Johnson simply countersigned Lincoln's existing order, confirming the pardon. The events of Good Friday 1865, the last day of Lincoln's life, have been documented with unusual thoroughness. After waking at about seven o'clock, he worked on papers at his desk in the oval office, then, over breakfast, listened to his son Robert's first-hand account of Lee's surrender at Appomattox, five days earlier (Captain Robert Todd Lincoln was a staff officer attached to Grant's command). Next, Lincoln met with a succession of government officials including House Speaker Schuyler Colfax and California Congressman Cornelius Cole. After a brief carriage ride with General U. S. Grant, he visited the telegraph office in the War Department. At 11 he convened a meeting of the cabinet, at which he described to Gideon Welles an alarming dream of a ship. In mid-afternoon, he and Mary Lincoln rode together about Washington, and, at the Navy Yard on the Potomac, Lincoln briefly toured a Union ironclad. "Throughout the afternoon he was 'cheerful--almost joyous,' his wife recalled, and his spirits were so high that she said to him, laughing, 'Dear Husband, you almost startle me by your great cheerfulness.' 'And well I may feel so, Mary,' he responded, 'I consider this day , the war has come to close'" (D.H. Herbert, Lincoln , p.593). Few documents signed by Lincoln on his last day remain in private hands. Basler and its supplements cite 12 letters and documents dated April 14, mostly endorsements, many already in permanent institutional collections. In the last 25 years, only 3 examples, including the present, are recorded at auction. Apprently unpublished, not in Basler, or Supplements. Another April 14 endorsement with Johnson's signature added was part of the Forbes Collection (sale, Christie's, 9 October 2002, lot 125, $47,800).
LINCOLN, Abraham. Autograph endorsement signed ("A. Lincoln") as President, COUNTER-SIGNED BY PRESIDENT ANDREW JOHNSON, Lincoln's endorsement comprising 3 lines plus date and signature, [Washington, D.C.], 14 APRIL 1865. 1 page, an oblong, 3¾ x 1¾ in., probably cut from a larger document, neatly inlaid with a portrait, soiled. GOOD FRIDAY, 1865: IN ONE OF HIS LAST OFFICIAL ACTS BEFORE HIS ASSASSINATION, LINCOLN GRANTS AMNESTY TO A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE PRISONERS A document recording an act of mercy by the President whose life would be violently taken by an assassin within a scant twenty-four hours. Having been written and signed by the President on that fateful day, it constitutes one of a handful of documents with that date still in private hands. And, since it carries the extra endorsement of President Andrew Johnson--no doubt added after Lincoln's death--it is ONE OF ONLY THREE OR FOUR SUCH PARDONS SIGNED BY BOTH THE 16TH AND 17TH PRESIDENTS. During the late phases of the war, with the collapse of the Confederacy, many Confederate prisoners, civilian and military, sought release from Union imprisonment under terms first promulgated by Lincoln in his December 1863 Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconciliation. It permitted Confederates who took a prescribed oath not to act against the Federal government, to be pardoned and released. Lincoln was appealed to on many occasions and in a great many, would simply turn over the letter containing the appeal and add a note like this one on the back (see, for example, lot 261). In other cases, he added the pardon on one of the small blank cards he habitually used. "Let these men be released on taking the oath of Dec. 8, 1863. Apr. 14 1865. A. Lincoln." There is no mystery behind the existence of a few such endorsements, countersigned by Johnson. Lincon must have signed them on Friday, April 14. It is likely they remained on his desk at the end of that day, waiting to be passed on. After Lincoln's death, his scrawled order might not have carried the full authority of the Chief Executive, so, to ensure his predecessor's order was carried out and the individual in question released, Johnson simply countersigned Lincoln's existing order, confirming the pardon. The events of Good Friday 1865, the last day of Lincoln's life, have been documented with unusual thoroughness. After waking at about seven o'clock, he worked on papers at his desk in the oval office, then, over breakfast, listened to his son Robert's first-hand account of Lee's surrender at Appomattox, five days earlier (Captain Robert Todd Lincoln was a staff officer attached to Grant's command). Next, Lincoln met with a succession of government officials including House Speaker Schuyler Colfax and California Congressman Cornelius Cole. After a brief carriage ride with General U. S. Grant, he visited the telegraph office in the War Department. At 11 he convened a meeting of the cabinet, at which he described to Gideon Welles an alarming dream of a ship. In mid-afternoon, he and Mary Lincoln rode together about Washington, and, at the Navy Yard on the Potomac, Lincoln briefly toured a Union ironclad. "Throughout the afternoon he was 'cheerful--almost joyous,' his wife recalled, and his spirits were so high that she said to him, laughing, 'Dear Husband, you almost startle me by your great cheerfulness.' 'And well I may feel so, Mary,' he responded, 'I consider this day , the war has come to close'" (D.H. Herbert, Lincoln , p.593). Few documents signed by Lincoln on his last day remain in private hands. Basler and its supplements cite 12 letters and documents dated April 14, mostly endorsements, many already in permanent institutional collections. In the last 25 years, only 3 examples, including the present, are recorded at auction. Apprently unpublished, not in Basler, or Supplements. Another April 14 endorsement with Johnson's signature added was part of the Forbes Collection (sale, Christie's, 9 October 2002, lot 125, $47,800).
.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
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