Lincoln, Abraham, as Sixteenth President

Autograph note signed ("A. Lincoln") on a card (2 1/8 x 3 3/8 in.; 53 x 85 mm), [Washington,] 12 January 1864, to Senator James Dixon of Connecticut, accompanied by a small black-bordered mourning envelope (2 1/2 x 4 1/8 in.; 63 x 107 mm) signed by Mary Todd Lincoln ("Mrs. Lincoln") and addressed in her hand to "Mrs. Senator Dixon"; envelope stained and slightly chipped.

Autograph note signed ("A. Lincoln") on a card (2 1/8 x 3 3/8 in.; 53 x 85 mm), [Washington,] 12 January 1864, to Senator James Dixon of Connecticut, accompanied by a small black-bordered mourning envelope (2 1/2 x 4 1/8 in.; 63 x 107 mm) signed by Mary Todd Lincoln ("Mrs. Lincoln") and addressed in her hand to "Mrs. Senator Dixon"; envelope stained and slightly chipped.
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James Dixon served with Abraham Lincoln in the House of Representatives, and as a Senator he was a strong supporter of Lincoln, beginning at the 1860 Republican National Convention. The present note asks, "Will Senator Dixon please call and see me this morning?" Later that day, the President sent to the Senate information and reports in his possession relative to the allegation of Senator James Lane of Kansas that troops from his state captured by the Confederates were "invariably put to death" (see Basler 7:123). Lincoln found no validity to Lane's charge and likely wanted to discuss his formal response with Dixon prior to sending it to the Senate.

Elizabeth Dixon, Senator Dixon's wife, was one of Mary Lincoln's few confidantes during her White House years. The envelope directed to Mrs. Dixon likely dates from either the period of Willie Lincoln's death (20 February 1862) or of President Lincoln's assassination.

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 Basler, and evidently unpublished.