Scope and Contents:
This document is a note offering a pardon, signed by Abraham Lincoln on February 10, 1864.
On February 10, 1864, Abraham Lincoln reviewed more than thirty court martial cases, giving his decision on pardoning, approving, commuting, or remitting sentences. This note is likely Lincoln's response to one such case, though the man that the note refers to is unknown. It promises that if the man swore allegiance to the Union, he would receive a general pardon.
The note reads: "Let this man take the Oath of Dec. 8, 1863, and be discharged," and it is signed "A. Lincoln."
The note was published in 1953 in Leslie W. Dunlap's Lincoln Room, University of Illinois Library: Memorial, the Class of 1901, Founded by Harlan Hoyt Horner and Henrietta Calhoun Horner, and said to be located in the Lincoln Room at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library. However, the note was identified as missing in 2001, when the Illinois Historical Survey took over administration of the Lincoln Room.
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