Lincoln, Abraham, as Sixteenth President

Autograph letter signed ("A. Lincoln"), 1 page (9 3/4 x 7 7/8 in.; 248 x 200 mm) on a bifolium of sepia-ruled Executive Mansion letterhead, Washington, 23 December 1861, to General David Hunter; lightly mat-browned, short marginal fold separations, some mounting remnants on verso of integral blank.

Autograph letter signed ("A. Lincoln"), 1 page (9 3/4 x 7 7/8 in.; 248 x 200 mm) on a bifolium of sepia-ruled Executive Mansion letterhead, Washington, 23 December 1861, to General David Hunter; lightly mat-browned, short marginal fold separations, some mounting remnants on verso of integral blank.
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The genesis of one of Lincoln's most ill-advised military appointments: "I have appointed Hon. James H. Lane a Brigadier General, and ... I have promised ... to so place him and Gen. Denver as that they may not come in contact with each other."

James Henry Lane, a native of Indiana, moved to the Kansas Territory in 1855. He became involved in the Free-State movement there and was increasingly attracted to radical abolitionism. When Kansas was admitted to the Union in 1861, Lane was sent to Washington as one of the state's Senators. 

When Washington was threatened by agitators from Maryland in April 1861, Lane, who had been a self-styled "General" in Kansas, organized the Frontier Guards, which was quartered in the East Room of the White House. Lincoln welcomed Lane's strong sense of purpose and addressed the men of the Frontier Guard on 26 April (see Basler 4:345). He also commissioned Lane a brigadier general and authorized him to raise two regiments of volunteers from Kansas to fight in the Department of the Missouri. Lane's appointment instantly became a lightning rod for controversy.

The Senate immediately questioned the validity of a sitting member of that body also holding an active field command, and Lincoln was sent a resolution inquiring whether Lane "has been appointed a general in the army of the United States; and if yea, whether he has accepted the appointment" (Basler 4:466-67). The President replied, somewhat disingenuously, to the Senate on 5 August, enclosing six ancillary documents and claiming that "It was my intention, as shown by my letter of June 20, 1861, to appoint Hon. James H. Lane, of Kansas, a brigadier general of United States volunteers, in anticipation of the act of Congress, since passed, for raising such volunteers; and I have no further knowledge upon the subject, except as derived from the papers herewith enclosed" (Basler 4:474).

So watchful of Lane was Lincoln that he wrote both to Secretary Cameron (on 16 December) and to General Hunter (in the present letter) that he wanted him assigned so as to have no immediate contact with a former Kansas rival and adversary, James William Denver, who had also been appointed a brigadier general of volunteers.

"I have appointed Hon. James H. Lane a Brigadier General, and he will report to you for orders. I have promised him to request you to so place him and Gen. Denver as that they may not come in contact with each other—and this, not as an affront to Gen. Denver, but simply to avoid a possible colision which might be unpleasant and injurious. It is insisted by some that Lane should be kept out of Missouri, which is doubtful with me; still I wish, if you shall think of sending him there, you will consider of it well, as you will have the means of doing. He has all confidence in you; and, with his knowledge of the country and the men, I expect him to be a valuable officer."

General Denver was a Buchanan man who served as secretary of state and governor of the Kansas Territory when Lane was most active in his jayhawking activities. Hunter evidently managed to keep Lane and Denver apart (and perhaps a good thing—in 1852 Denver killed the editor of the Daily Alta California in a duel sparked by the paper's criticism of Denver's handling of supply trains for overland immigrants to the Golden States), but Hunter and Lane themselves proved incompatible. Lane had planned a "Great Southern Expedition" into Arkansas, which Hunter would not authorize. Lincoln tried to mend the rift with a letter jointly addressed to the two generals on 10 February 1862: "Gen. Hunter is the senior officer, and must command when they serve together; though, in so far as he can, consistently with the public service, and his own honor, oblige Gen. Lane, he will also oblige me. If they can not come to an amicable understanding, Gen. Lane must report to Gen. Hunter for duty, according to the rules, or decline the service" (Basler 5:131).

Lane had never shown himself one to follow the rules, and after further complaint to the President, his appointment as brigadier general was cancelled on 21 March 1862 (he does not, therefore, appear in Ezra Warner's Generals in Blue). While he was increasingly marginalized in national matters, Lane remained a strong regional supporter of Lincoln and was a delegate to the Baltimore convention that renominated him for president. Lane seemed to lose both his personal and political bearings at the beginning of Reconstruction; he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in July 1866.

Lincoln might have spared himself and General Hunter a great deal of trouble by taking more seriously a letter from Henry Halleck to George McClellan that passed his desk. On 19 December 1861, Halleck reported that "The conduct of forces under Lane ... has done more for the enemy that could have been accomplished by 20,000 of his own army. I receive almost daily complaints of outrages committed by these men in the name of the United States. ... It is rumored that Lane has been made a brigadier-general. I cannot conceive of a more injudicious appointment." Seemingly nonplussed, Lincoln endorsed Halleck's missive, "An excellent letter; though I am sorry General Halleck is so unfavorably impressed with General Lane" (Basler 5:80).

Not in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Basler, and apparently unpublished.