Lincoln, Abraham, as sixteenth President

1 page (8 x 5 in.; 203 x 127 mm) on a biolium of Executive Mansion letterhead; split at horizontal folds and artlessly repaired on verso. Accompanied by a later envelope inscribed "Pres A Lincoln Document to Capt. John A Perry Valuable."

Jeremiah S. McGregor, Life and Deeds of Dr. John McGregor (Foster, Rhode Island, 1886); not in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln

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A previously unrecorded document regarding one of the early Union heroes of the Civil War. Born in Coventry, Rhode Island, John McGregor studied at the Medical College of New York and set up a private practice in 1846, first in his hometown and then in Thompson Hill, Connecticut. Immediately after the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter, McGregor voluntered as surgeon for the Third Connecticut Regiment and shortly found himself in Washington. At the First Battle of Bull Run, 21 July 1861, Dr. McGregor established a field hospital at a house near the battlefield.

Major Alexander Warner explained the aftermath in a letter to McGregor's father, 1 August 1861: "When the retreat was ordered, I rode up to the hospital. The doctor came to the door, all besmeared with blood. I told him that a retreat was ordered, and, for his own safety, he had better leave at once. He asked me if there was any preparation for removing the wounded men. I told him there was not. He then turned and went into the hospital. As he turned, he said, 'Major I cannot leave the wounded men, and I shall stay with them, and let the result follow'" (McGregor, p. 39). The result was that Dr. McGregor was taken prisoner and spent more than a year in Confederate prisons in Virginia and South Carolina.

A concerted effort was made by the Union to exchange Dr. McGregor, as evidenced by the present autograph document by President Lincoln: "Any United States Officer having rebel prisoners of War in charge, will please allow the bearer, Capt. John A. Perry, to select a Major among such prisoners, and send him through our lines, upon his parole of honor that he will return to our custody by a named day unless prior thereto, he shall procure to be sent through our lines from the other side, Dr. John McGregor, who is now a prisoner of war—at Richmond, as is thought." John A. Perry was a captain and chaplain in the First Rhode Island Light Artillery, and so would have been an appropriate choice for this humanitarian mission.

The Confederates either did not receive or did not respond to the Union overtures for an exchange. McGregor was eventually released—or abandoned—by his captors on the banks of the James River. He thought at the time that he had been left out to die, but he was able to return to the North, although his broken health prevented his continued service.