War-dated ALS as president, signed “A. Lincoln,” one page, 5 x 8, Executive Mansion letterhead, April 19, 1862. Lincoln writes to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. In full: “Will you, with the Adjutant General, please find a way to put Henry J. Doolittle, son of the Senator, on the staff of Gen. Charles S. Hamilton, acting Major General, near York-Town. My heart is in this.” In fine condition, with several light vertical folds, a small split along the bottom of the moderate vertical fold which passes through Lincoln’s first initial, and some scattered extremely mild toning.
Stanton immediately acted upon Lincoln’s request—one of countless such requests received by the presidents—and saw to it that Doolittle was appointed additional aide-de-camp on Hamilton’s staff on the same date as this letter. Doolittle had enlisted in the Union Army after his 1861 graduation from Harvard, but was relieved just 11 days later, on April 30, during the Siege of Yorktown and transferred to the Western Theater. Three months later, a Wisconsin newspaper reported on the celebration of the silver wedding anniversary of Senator and Mrs. James R. Doolittle at their Racine home, noting that ‘their eldest son, Capt. Henry J. Doolittle, is confined to his room with typhoid fever and dysentery.’ Captain Doolittle died in his room the following August at the age of 23.
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