CWN
20
October 2020
Letter to Lincoln
Homepage for Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Readers may recall two previous articles (May and June of 2017) in this column dealing with The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Researchers now have even greater access to writings to and from our nation’s sixteenth president thanks to the Library of Congress’s crowdsourcing efforts and contributions from the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. Working under the ‘Letters to Lincoln’ heading, the collection contains over 40,000 documents, with 20,000 now digitized and
available online. The collection spans from 1774 to 1948 and covers military topics, family issues, and many other themes. Visit https://crowd.loc.gov/campaigns/ letters-to-lincoln/ to read more on the scope of this mission. Users may wish to begin their exploration at https://www.loc.gov/ collections/abraham-lincoln-papers/?q=%22by+the+people%22+volunteers. The image above illustrates the homepage and shows some of the varied search options available. For a look into Lincoln’s wartime
documents, this writer, after selecting the date option of ‘18601869,’ arrived at the following archives for each year of the American Civil War. The collection has 166 files from 1861, 308 from 1862, 1863 contains 189, 417 documents from 1864, and 98 from 1865. Diving into the deep end of the pool, this writer opted for 1864. Numerous sort options exist; date (oldest first) seems a desirable selection. One may need to experiment a little using various keywords to narrow down the search results. This writer searched using both ‘Sherman’ and ‘Savannah;’ either term will drill even deeper into the papers, but ‘Savannah’ obviously produced documents about Sherman’s capture of the city in December 1864. The ability to view a digitized copy of the original document and then see a transcription serves as one of the high values in this site. As of this writing, volunteers have transcribed over 10,000 of the materials, and their work continues. Most readers have heard of Sherman’s famous message sent to Lincoln, the one offering “… as a Christmas gift, the City of Savannah” (Image shown). Now, students can see Lincoln’s response to Sherman. The terminology of the site offers descriptions like this one for Lincoln’s response. ‘Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833–1916: Abraham Lincoln to William T. Sherman, Monday, December 26, 1864 (Capture of Savannah, Georgia).’ First, look at the penmanship of Lincoln in the image shown. Next, and a most helpful tool, click on the ‘Show Text’ link above the image, and presented for the user, in adjacent fashion, the transcription and the original. (See image.) Try various search terms, select from the drill-down options, and enjoy the harvest. Several helpful tools exist. • Index to Abraham Lincoln Papers: http:// lcweb2.loc.gov/
Sherman’s Christmas Gift Message.
Lincoln’s written response to Sherman.
Transcription and original of Lincoln’s letter to Sherman. cgi-bin/ampage?collId=gdc3&fileName=scd0001_20101124004alpage. db; available in PDF or HTML formats. • Library of Congress Finding Aid (PDF): https://findingaids.loc.gov/exist_collections/ead3pdf/mss/2009/ ms009304.pdf • Provenance of the Abraham Lincoln Papers: the history of the papers, at https:// w w w. l o c . g o v / c o l l e c tions/abraham-lincoln-papers/articles-and-essays/ provenance/. • David C. Mearns’s two-volume The Lincoln Papers— circa 1948—available for purchase at booksellers, also serves as a helpful tool when researching Lincoln’s papers. Check https://www.worldcat. org for a copy of the two-volume set in a nearby library. Explore the writings of Lincoln, and enjoy continuing luck while
researching the American Civil War. Michael K. Shaffer is a Civil War historian, author, lecturer, instructor, and a member of the Society of Civil War Historians, the Historians of the Civil War Western Theater, and the Georgia Association of Historians. Readers may contact him at mkscdr11@gmail.com, or to request speaking engagements, via his website www.civilwarhistorian.net. Follow Michael on Facebook www.facebook.com/ michael.k.shaffer and Twitter @ michaelkshaffer.
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