Lincoln, Abraham

1 page (9 3/4 x 7 7/8 in.; 248 x 201 mm) on Executive Mansion letterhead, Washington, 21 December 1862; marginal fold separations neatly closed, mounting remnants on verso.

Charles Calmer Hart, United States Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Albania and Iran (Parke-Bernet, 25 February 1947, lot 168)

The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Basler, V:538 (partial transcription from Parke-Bernet catalogue description) & Supplement:165–67 (text from a photocopy in the Library of Congress); cf. Dennis K. Boman, Lincoln's Resolute Unionist: Hamilton Gamble, Dred Scott Dissenter and Missouri's Civil War Governor (LSU Press, 2006)

1 page (9 3/4 x 7 7/8 in.; 248 x 201 mm) on Executive Mansion letterhead, Washington, 21 December 1862; marginal fold separations neatly closed, mounting remnants on verso.
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Lincoln drafts a order giving extraordinary powers to Hamilton Gamble, the Civil War Governor of Missouri. Hamilton Gamble was named the provisional governor of Missouri in 1861, when the sitting governor, Claiborne F. Jackson, joined the Confederacy. Missouri was perhaps the most contentious of the border states, but the resolute Gamble succeeded in preserving the state for the Union despite the Confederate sympathies of a large number of its citizens and the state's interminable border conflict with Kansas. Despite his great allegiance to the Union, Gamble considered Lincoln's first call for troops to be unconstitutional and commanded the Missouri militia against rebel guerrillas. As the state's military situation was gradually brought into conformity with the Union Department of the Missouri under the successive commands of generals Henry W. Halleck and Samuel R. Curtis, Lincoln directed his Secretary of War to draft an order that allowed Gamble to maintain a high degree of influence over "the peculiar military force organized in Missouri":

“Please make an order, in due form, substantially as follows, and send me a copy which I may inclose to Gov. Gamble in a letter with some explanation.

“'Ordered that all officers of the peculiar military force organized in Missouri by Governor Gamble (except the Major General, in regard to which officer special provision is already made) may be, by said Governor, in his discretion, removed from office; and he may accept resignations tendered by them, or any of them, he notifying this Department in each case, wherein his action in such cases will be confirmed. Also that his previous action in similar cases is hereby confirmed.’”

Lincoln's official order was issued on 28 December 1862 in Adjutant General's Office Special Orders, no. 417.