Lincoln, Abraham, as Sixteenth President

Autograph letter signed ("A. Lincoln"), 1 page (8 x 5 in.; 202 x 121 mm) on Executive Mansion letterhead, Washington, 18 June 1864, to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton; inlaid to a larger sheet.

Charles J. Rosenbloom, Pittsburgh (Sotheby's New York, 23 October 1987, lot 47)

Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Basler, 7:400

Autograph letter signed ("A. Lincoln"), 1 page (8 x 5 in.; 202 x 121 mm) on Executive Mansion letterhead, Washington, 18 June 1864, to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton; inlaid to a larger sheet.
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A disastrous Union appointment for a vital Border State.

President Lincoln writes to Stanton, cautiously seconding a military appointment recommended by two civilian leaders from the Bluegrass State: "Hon. L. Anderson and Judge Williams of Ky. are here urging, first, that assessments, for some time suspended in West Ky, be again put in operation; and secondly, that Gen. E. A. Paine be assigned to command them. Do both these things for them unless you know some reason to the contrary. I personally know Gen. Paine to be a good true man, having a West-Point education; but I do not know much as to his Military ability." Paine's two advocates were both from Mayfield, Kentucky: Lucian Anderson was a Unionist Congressman and Rufus K. Williams, a justice on the Kentucky Court of Appeals.

Eleazar Arthur Paine (1815-1882), an Ohio native, moved to Illinois in 1848 and became Lincoln's good friend and political ally. In September 1861, Lincoln named Paine a brigadier general of volunteers, and he had also shown himself willing to accept Paine's suggestions for military appointments (see, for instance, the President's endorsements to Secretary of War Simon Cameron on letters from Paine of 3 July 1861 and 12 September 1861; Basler 4:448, 529). But in joining in the recommendation for Paine's new command, Lincoln made a grievous error in judgment. Unfortunately, the Secretary of War acted on Lincoln's endorsement, and Paine was named commander of the District of Western Kentucky in mid-July.

By the first week of September, Paine's brutal behavior as commander of Union forces in such a volatile area forced General Ulysses Grant to telegraph to General in Chief Henry W. Halleck that "Gen. Payne must be removed from Paducah. He is not fit to have a command where there is a solitary family within his reach favorable to the Government. His administration will result in large and just claims against the Government for destruction of private property taken from our friends. He will do to put in an intensely disloyal district to scourge the people but even then it is doubtful whether it comes within the bounds of civilized warfare to use him." Grant had been alerted to Paine's excesses by General Henry Prince, who reported on 16 August that the new District commander was acting on "the theory that the sickest patient requires the most violent dosing" and instituting "a policy calculated ... to spread ruin and devastation, and having no good in it" (The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, ed. Simon, 12:124-25).

Not even his friendship with the President could save Paine. A week after Grant filed his protest, Paine was removed from his Kentucky command. He held on to his commission for a time while awaiting orders that never came, and finally submitted his resignation, to date from 5 April 1865.